Boy George chooses not to give evidence

Boy George chose not to give evidence today in defence of allegations that he handcuffed a male escort to his bed and threatened him.

The 46-year-old pop star's defence counsel informed a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court, in east London, that Boy George - who is on trial under his real name of George O'Dowd - will not give evidence.

O'Dowd denies falsely imprisoning Audun Carlsen, 29, at his home in Shoreditch, east London, on 28 April last year.

The singer allegedly invited the Norwegian to his flat for a second time because he suspected him of stealing photos from his computer.

The pictures were taken during a naked photo shoot, for which O'Dowd had hired Mr Carlsen three months earlier, the court has heard.

As the defence case began today, Judge David Radford asked Adrian Waterman QC: "Have you explained to your client that the time has come when, if he chooses not to give evidence or refuses to give evidence while sworn under oath, a jury may draw such inferences as appear proper by his failure to do so?"

Mr Waterman replied that he had done so.

The judge then asked if O'Dowd was being called to give evidence. Mr Waterman said: "No."

A computer expert told the court there was evidence that photos had been uploaded from one of O'Dowd's computers on to the Gaydar networking site by Mr Carlsen or someone using his username and password.

Kim Yip, who has a Masters degree in information security as well as being a qualified computer examiner and forensic analyst, inspected three computers belonging to the pop singer, the court heard.

Among his findings was an email sent by O'Dowd to Gaydar support on 24 January, 2007.

Mr Yip confirmed he had retrieved the contents, which read: "I feel I need to report a situation I have just experienced with an escort I hired from Gaydar. I actually booked him to do a photo shoot and it was great. Sadly he felt the need to steal computer files."

O'Dowd complained that he had had to pay for his computer to be repaired as a result and added: "I have attempted to contact him but I have been unable to get any response."

Mr Yip told the court that inspection of usage of O'Dowd's computers also indicated visits to a Danish website which did not have an English language version.