A London jury found Boy George guilty of handcuffing Norwegian male escort Audun Carlsen to a wall and beating him, last week, prompting Judge David Radford to warn the Culture Club star that he faces jail when sentenced on January 16. “The fact that your bail is being continued does not imply that this will be dealt with by a non-custodial sentence,” Judge David Radford told George. “I don’t want any false expectations created.”

George was convicted just hours before he was due to headline a DJ gig at London’s Ministry Of Sound. He now faces up to 15 years in jail, plus an avalanche of bad press, which kicked off immediately after his conviction with the BBC painting a harsh picture of ‘a lonely, paranoid man struggling to find his place in the world’. Quite how the infamously outspoken star reacts to his predicament remains unclear, though speaking to Skrufff five years ago he admitted being deeply affected by criticism in the press.

“I don’t court the media, I go out and do my own thing and I’m really happy the tabloids don’t usually write about me, I wish they’d all just fuck off and leave me alone. They’re always saying ‘washed up and sad and desperate’, so don’t write about me,” George said at the time. “They’re always trying to perpetuate this idea that I don’t do anything, that I’m a sad washed up old pop star, who just does a bit of DJing at the weekend. Fuck off, leave me alone,” he added. “It’s so fucking British to kick people,” he observed.