Kevin Spacey trial live updates: Actor appears in court to face sexual assault charges

One of the men who accuses Kevin Spacey of sexual assault gave evidence featuring a factual error concerning its most shocking alleged incident, Spacey’s defense barrister told the court Monday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the man told the court that Spacey grabbed his groin while the pair traveled to a party hosted by Elton John in 2004 or 2005, almost causing their car to crash.

“That’s completely untrue isn’t it? Kevin Spacey went to the White Tie Ball once and that was in 2001. This 2004/5 allegation is simply a device you use to explain why you stopped [associating] with him,” said Patrick Gibbs KC while cross-examining the alleged victim.

The man replied that it was a busy time and he couldn’t remember all the details. “If you’re saying it’s a different date then you’ve got evidence to suggest that.”

Gibbs revealed that the man posted pictures of himself with Spacey on his LinkedIn profile, including a shot of the pair on a runway. The man said this was for marketing purposes to help his business.

But Gibbs revealed that police analysis of a printed version of this photo showed it was printed between 2012 and 2015. The man again said that the photo was used for business purposes.

The first alleged victim to speak in the trial said Spacey attempted to grope him even while the actor was so drunk he could hardly walk.

“One time he said ‘Give us a hand, I can hardly walk.’ But even then I would notice his hand going around me, even when he was paralytic," the alleged victim said.

The man, who cannot by identified, said that Spacey would go out to boozy parties in and around London until 3 or 4 a.m. local time and wake up around midday.

“I used to dread when he would ring and ask me to pick something up” he said. “I would have to go up there [to his apartment] and he would be half-naked or completely naked and begin to try something."

Kevin Spacey forcibly put a man’s hand on his penis, the first alleged victim to speak in the actor’s sexual offense trial said.

“The first time he touched me was a massive shock, I immediately pushed his hand off,” the man said, while being cross-examined by Spacey’s defense barrister Patrick Gibbs KC about his relationship with Spacey.

“When it became clear he was attracted to you, were you a tiny bit flattered?” Gibbs asked.

Asked whether he ever made the first move, the man replied: “Never.”

“He would put my hand on him quickly and hard and then I’d pull it away. I’d say: ‘Don’t do that.’ Then he’d do the same to me, put his hands on my penis. He wouldn’t be fazed by it, he’d just do it. I made it crystal clear, don’t do that again, I don’t like that,” he said.

The first alleged victim to speak in court said he felt as if he was being groomed by Spacey.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons said that while they were alone in the early 2000s Spacey would ask about his girlfriend, whether he had been to the gym and make sexually suggestive comments that made him uncomfortable, the court heard.

"After two or three weeks he tried to get in my head about my sexuality. He made me feel uncomfortable," the man said. "He was asking me ‘what’s your girlfriend like’ ... He was almost grooming me or something.”

The first alleged victim to speak in the trial told the court that Spacey sexually grabbed him so hard that the car he was driving to a glitzy A-list party almost crashed.

The pair were traveling to Elton John’s famous White Tiara Ball in the early 2000s at the height of Spacey’s fame, the man said.

“He grabbed me so hard I almost drove off the road,” the alleged victim told Southward Crown Court via a filmed police interview. “He grabbed me really hard, it really hurt. I said ‘Don’t you f***ing do that or I will knock you out.’ He laughed. I will never forget it.”

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said in the police interview that Spacey sexually touched him a dozen times over the course of five years. The actor was, the man said, “mixed up and confused” about his sexuality at this time. 

“He would always be very touchy-feely to start with, which was strange to me. Being a professional man’s man I found it very eerie and awkward,” he said. “He started rubbing my leg and rubbing my neck. It made me feel uneasy, but I had a job, I had a mortgage ... I told him to stop but he started to laugh.”

Kevin Spacey repeatedly grabbed and groped a man over the course of five years, despite pleas for the actor to stop, the courtroom heard on Monday.

“He grabbed me in private areas, and tried to get me to put my hands on him,” one of the alleged four victims featured in this trial said in a filmed police interview shown to the court Monday. “He tried to grope me and grab me and it made me feel very, very uncomfortable.”

The man, who cannot by named for legal reasons, said the incidents happened while the Oscar-winning actor was artistic director at the Old Vic Theater in London.

The actor assaulted the man — including grabbing his groin or placing the man’s hand on his own penis — a dozen times over the course of five years, he said. The alleged incidents happened at various locations including a car and in an elevator, the man said.

Spacey, who denies 12 charges of sexual crimes, appeared to listen intently to the evidence.

Spacey entered the courtroom Monday via the public entrance with his legal team. He was not handcuffed.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and customary black glasses, Spacey sat listening to proceedings in the dock, the locked, glass-paneled room at the center of the courtroom where defendants sit in British courts.

In her opening statement on Friday, prosecutor Christine Agnew described Spacey as a “sexual bully” who “it would seem delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.”

Agnew told the jury that Spacey was an extremely famous and award-winning actor, Reuters reported. “He is also, the prosecution allege, a man who sexually assaults other men,” she said, according to the news agency. “A man who does not respect personal boundaries or space, a man who it would seem delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable — a sexual bully."

Spacey, 63, has denied all of the allegations against him.

The actor's lawyer, Patrick Gibbs, said there were two sides to the stories.

“You will hear some truths, you will hear some half-truths, you will also hear ... some deliberate exaggerations and some many damned lies,” he said, according to Reuters.

Kevin Spacey was expected to appear at Southwark Crown Court on Monday as the actor's trial, in which he is facing a dozen sexual offense charges, resumes.

The disgraced actor faces charges over offenses alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2013, including indecent and sexual assaults and an offense of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, which carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

He has denied all of the allegations against him.