Boy George found guilty

LONDON - BRITISH pop star Boy George was found guilty by a court in London on Friday of falsely imprisoning a Norwegian male escort after a nude photoshoot.

The former Culture Club frontman, 47, was accused of handcuffing 29-year-old Audun Carlsen and beating him with a metal chain when he tried to escape the musician's east London apartment following the photo session.

He will be sentenced on January 16.

Standing trial under his real name George O'Dowd at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the singer and disc jockey admitted to police to handcuffing Carlsen to his bed on April 28, 2007, as he investigated the Norwegian's alleged tampering with his computer.

He denied, however, that he assaulted Carlsen, or hit him with a metal chain, suggesting to officers that the bruises suffered by the escort could have been there because of the fact that he was HIV positive.

The pair met on the gay website Gaydar, and Carlsen first went to O'Dowd's apartment in January 2007, when they posed naked for the photoshoot and took cocaine.

Carlsen said the singer performed a sex act on him for 'five seconds before I said no,' and claimed that the star later sent him a string of e-mails accusing him of hacking into his computer.

Despite that, Carlsen returned to O'Dowd's flat in April 2007 and said that when he arrived, he was handcuffed to a wall hook, called a 'whore,' punched repeatedly and beat with a metal chain when he tried to flee.

Explaining why the attack happened, Carlsen told the court: 'I think he couldn't handle the refusal - me not having sex with him.' -- AFP