US actor Kevin Spacey avoids new trial with court settlement

LONDON - Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey will avoid a new trial after settling out of court with three men who launched a UK civil suit against him accusing him of sexual assault.

The 66-year-old star of American Beauty and drama series House Of Cards has always denied any wrondoing.

Actor Ruari Cannon, who waived his right to anonymity, along with two others who did not, claimed in the civil suits at London’s High Court that Spacey abused them between 2000 and 2015 after meeting them when he was artistic director at London’s Old Vic theatre.

Judge Christina Lambert had ruled at a hearing in November that the cases should be provisionally heard in October this year.

But on March 13 she ruled the proceedings should be frozen, “the parties having agreed to the terms of settlement as set out in the confidential schedule,” according to a court order revealed on March 18 by the Press Association news agency.

Judge Lambert made no order on costs.

Spacey was acquitted in 2023 of a number of criminal sexual charges alleged by four men following a trial in London.

Cannon – who was not involved in the 2023 case – also sued the Old Vic theatre, but settled that case out of court earlier this month.

Spacey won the best supporting actor Oscar for the 1996 film The Usual Suspects and best actor in 2000 for American Beauty.

But his once-stellar career was damaged by various allegations of sexual offences, which first emerged in 2017 as part of the nascent #MeToo movement, and which Spacey has always denied.

In 2022, a New York court also dismissed a US$40 million civil sexual misconduct lawsuit brought against him. AFP