Kevin Spacey will face a trial, which will last at least three weeks, in the courts of London. It will begin on June 6, 2023 and will take place at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, better known as the Old Bailey. Unless accommodation can be found in the busy agenda of the court in Southwark, the London district where the American actor allegedly committed a series of sexual abuses 17 years ago.
It was during the preliminary hearing held this Thursday at the Old Bailey where Spacey – blue suit, white shirt, polka dot tie, glasses and a two-day beard – appeared for 20 minutes to confirm his identity , listen to the accusations against him and declare himself “not guilty” of all.
Son four charges of sexual assault brought against him by the London Metropolitan Police, plus a fifth charge of non-consensual penetration of another man. The alleged crimes were committed between 2005 and 2013 against three men now in their 30s and 40s. Four of them occurred in London and one in the city of Gloucestershire, in the west of England.
The sentences, if Spacey is ultimately found guilty, would range from six months in jail or a fine to life in prison.
It was May 26th when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS, crown prosecution service) of the United Kingdom has announced its decision to pursue for four crimes of sexual abuse to American actor Kevin Spacey, 62. “Similarly, he was also accused of forcing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without their consent. All charges are the result of the final review of evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police during their investigation,” said Rosemary Ainslie, head of Scotland Yard’s special crimes division.
In the middle of June, British justice has started the trial against Spacey and, at a preliminary hearing, the charges were disclosed to him. During this first session, Judge Tanweer Ikram authorized the release of the actor without bail, as happened again during this second hearing in which the actor denied the facts, as he also said through his attorney, Patrick Gibbs, in June, “The actor strongly denies any criminal activity in this case.
The star, protagonist of legendary films such as Glengarry Glenn Ross, The usual suspects, LA Confidential, American beauty or the series Card castlepublicly revealed in 2017 that he was gay, shortly after actor Antony Rapp allegedly accused him of raping her when he was 14, in 1986. Spacey was then 26 years old. At the end of a party, the actor of Discovery of Star Trek to the news site BuzzFeed News, Spacey jumped on his bed and tried to abuse him. Was the case Weinstein, and the movement that generated the Me Too, which encouraged Rapp to take the plunge. Since this first accusation, up to 30 other men have claimed to have been victims of the actor’s sexual abuse.
In recent years, some of the proceedings against Spacey have ended in dismissal, due to the statute of limitations for the crimes or because the accusing parties or the prosecution decided to drop the charges. Through lawsuits before the civil court, the actor however had to pay compensation of tens of millions of dollars. On July 17, 2019, the last criminal case against the actor was closed, when the anonymous masseur who accused him of sexual abuse died.