TWELVE months ago the Darkness were a struggling pop-rock band who could not get a record contract.

Last night the band who put the glam back into rock swept the Brit Awards, taking three prizes, and succeeded in outshining Beyoncé with their silver sequinned catsuits.

The Suffolk quartet, formed by the brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins, took Best Album, Best British Group and Best British Rock Act awards at the music industry’s premier event.

The band, the first British group since Coldplay to make inroads into the US market, gave a typically flamboyant performance of their single I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

With their camp anthems, screeching guitar solos and a dose of old-fashioned sexism, the band’s appeal has stretched from heavy metal fans to fashion experts. Their Permission To Land album sold 1.2 million copies and the band even felt confident enough to release a novelty Christmas single.

They are not modest. “I have to say we probably are the best British group,” Justin Hawkins, the singer, said as he accepted the award.

Dido, Britain’s bestselling artist, who cancelled an appearance at the awards because she needed to rehearse for a world tour, won two prizes in her absence. She took the Best British Female category and the Best Single award for White Flag.

Another absentee winner was Daniel Bedingfield, who is recovering from a car crash in which he broke two vertebrae in his neck. The presenter Cat Deeley tried to call him in Australia to tell him that he had won the Best British Male award, but the voice at the other end kept complaining that he could not hear a word.

The Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson gave the Darkness their best album award and a trio of US stars, Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys and Gwen Stefani, performed a special collaboration. Other award presenters included Lionel Ritchie and LL Cool J.

As predicted, American acts provided most of the glamour at the ceremony, broadcast by ITV last night from Earls Court. Beyoncé appeared wearing £250,000 of diamonds and a Roberto Cavalli dress to perform her hit Dangerously In Love. She won the Best International Female prize.

Justin Timberlake presented Duran Duran with their outstanding contribution to music award and himself took two international prizes. Accepting their prize, Simon Le Bon, Duran Duran’s singer, said: “The band you see on stage in front of you owes everything to this country and the music we grew up to.”

The gangster rapper 50 Cent gave a performance mocking his criminal past and won the International Breakthrough Artist category.

Manufactured pop music was given its due, despite a 30 per cent collapse in single sales during 2003. Lemar, a loser at the BBC Fame Academy, won the British Urban Award and Busted, the trio formed at Uppingham public school, took two prizes, including the Best British Breakthrough Artist.

Unlike other manufactured pop artists, Busted do play their instruments and the band attempted to inject some rebellion into the disappointingly polite event by playing a cover version of the classic Undertones song Teenage Kicks.

Dido sent a taped message apologising for not attending and saying that she was surprised to win the best single award for White Flag, which she said was a difficult song to write. Her place in the running order was taken by a duet between the platinum-selling student Katie Melua and the young jazz performer Jamie Cullum, with a jazz version of Love Cats by The Cure.

It was not an evening for rock and roll madness, but Timberlake offered some hope when he collected his Best International Album award and promised: “Stick with me, we’ve still got depression and drug addiction to go through.”

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