Articles

Former Culture Club singer Boy George was convicted by a London jury on Thursday of imprisoning a male escort in his apartment in 2007. According to Sky News , prosecutors claimed that George restrained Norwegian escort Audun Carlsen, 29, with handcuffs in the singer's London apartment on April 28, 2007. Then, as Carlsen fled the apartment after a nude photo shoot, George beat him with a metal chain, the jury found. George, 46, did not testify in the trial, but admitted to police that he handcuffed Carlsen to a bad while trying to investigate whether someone had tampered with one of his home computers. George said he believed that Carlsen had removed from the computer some photos George had taken of him during a previous meeting. Carlsen testified that during their April meeting, George called him into his bedroom, jumped on him, wrestled him to the ground and began beating him. He told the court that George dragged him across the floor toward a bed and shackled him to a hook drilled into the wall. Jurors were shows pictures of welts on Carlsen's head and injuries to his arm, but the singer denied hitting him and suggested Carlsen received the marks because he was HIV-positive. Sky News reported that when the verdict was read, George's "mouth dropped and his friends in the public gallery gasped." The '80s pop star was released following the verdict and is due back in court for sentencing on January 16. The judge in the case indicated that jail was "the more likely option" for him. It's the latest setback for the flamboyant George, who has struggled with a serious heroin addiction and several drug-related arrests, including one in Manhattan in October 2005 in which police found cocaine in his apartment after he called them to report a burglary.

Amsterdam plans to halve the number of prostitution windows in a major revamp of its historic centre aimed at curbing rising crime, city authorities said Saturday. "The ambition is to turn (the city centre) into a safer, more beautiful and liveable area," stated a strategy released by the city council with proposals to spruce up Amsterdam's famous red light district and surrounding areas. The blueprint stated that there would "still be room for the sex industry, in clearly manageable locations throughout the heart of the capital city. Although the sex industry and coffee shops will no longer dominate the area, they will not disappear altogether . Some 240 of the existing 482 prostitution windows would remain by the time the plan is fully executed in ten years' time. Prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands in 2000. "We still believe that regulation is a better solution (than banning), but we have allowed it to become too massive," added Amsterdam deputy mayor Lodewijk Asscher. "This is a necessary correction." As for coffee shops, establishments with special licences to sell cannabis, city leaders hope to close up to half of the 76 currently based in the centre. The Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes of cannabis in 1976. Its cultivation, however, remains illegal. The blueprint stated that coffee shops, brothels, smart shops that sell soft drugs, sex shops and other similar establishments attracted and fed criminality. Some served as a cover for money laundering "Furthermore, the drugs issue and women trafficking are important reasons for the strategy," it said. The council conceded that the red light district, a tourist magnet, contributed to Amsterdam's image as a tolerant and liberal city. "This is part of Amsterdam's enormous strength, so it is important to ensure that the unique character of this district is retained," stated the draft plan. "But tolerance and freedom do not imply indifference." It added that an imbalance had emerged, with "low-level economic activities and crime-sensitive sectors" becoming over-represented, attracting criminal elements and impacting on the economic climate and living conditions. The plans are for the red light district to retain its mix of residential and office buildings with a vibrant night life described as "a mix of chic and shady." Up to 50 million euro’s would be required to identified buildings that now house brothels, to turn them into office and residential spaces, cafes and galleries. "Private industry is very, very interested, but we will have to wait and see what impact the current economic climate will have on these plans," said the deputy mayor. The proposal will be put forward for public input before a final decision is made.

Adult Lads Magazines could be forced to carry cinema-style age ratings, a report will demand this week. UK MP Claire Curtis Thomas warned magazine titles such as Nuts, Zoo and Maxim are little more than pornography and should be classified as such. Her Top Shelf report will say that the magazines and some newspapers including the Daily Sport should carry age-appropriate '16' or '18' certificates depending on the level of adult content. Newsagents across the United Kingdom have been seen to be actively ignoring guidelines which state the lads magazines should be displayed on the top shelf, away from children . The display of lads' mags is governed by a voluntary code of practice drawn up by the Periodical Publishers Associations (PPA) and the Home Office, which recommends that retailers display them well above children's eye level and away from children's titles or comics. Miss Curtis-Thomas finds that these are being widely ignored and men's magazines should be classified in the same way as films. Her report finds that retailers are widely flouting the current guidelines by displaying lad’s mags at the average height of a nine-year-old boy and the Sport is still being displayed next to child's comics. She said she was optimistic that ministers would take up her recommendations. 'The industry has manifestly failed to control the display of sexually-explicit material. We need to have age-related information put on the front of all lads' magazines.' The Labour MP for Crosby, who has spent a year and a half researching I do not want to censor this material, but we must do something about the display of these titles.' The report surveyed sixth form students and found that 100 per cent of girls who looked at the Daily Sport, Zoo and Nuts reported being angry, offended or upset by the images they contained. Only 11 per cent of male students said they felt the same, but one-fifth admitted the material encouraged them to see women as sex objects. Labour MP Ann Cryer said: 'If men stopped buying these magazines then no one would publish them.' Ben Todd, editor of Zoo, said: 'We should be treated like a cheeky seaside postcard. In our case, the most revealing aspect is topless pictures, which is no more than you see in the Sun or the Daily Star. So, if any sort of age restrictions are going to be introduced, I'd expect them to include those papers too.'