Boy George and the male escort he imprisoned were behaving like “drug-crazed idiots” during the infamous incident which led to the singer’s conviction, his barrister admitted today.

Adrian Waterman, QC, told a court that his client had descended into self-destructive behaviour at the hands of drugs and had hit rock bottom.

He called for the musician – whose real name is George O’Dowd – to receive a suspended rather than custodial sentence during his mitigation at a hearing today.

Mr Waterman told Snaresbrook Crown Court, in East London: “He’s on the way up. The fact that he is, when sober, a kind and generous man means there is no shortage of people to help him through his recovery.”

O’Dowd was found guilty of false imprisonment in April for chaining the Norwegian male escort Audun Carlsen to his bed in his flat in Shoreditch, East London and beating him with the help of another man.

Because of the conviction, the Eighties star will probably no longer be able to perform in Japan or America, where he has large fan bases, the court heard.

Indeed, two fans flew over from New York and Canada to sit in a packed number 1 court to listen to proceedings along with 20 friends and family of O'Dowd.

Today O'Dowd sat motionless in the dock, in between two guards, wearing a black duffel coat and black hoody.

O'Dowd and Mr Carlsen first met through a social networking site primarily for gay and bisexual men and they parted on good terms, even though the former Culture Club frontman suspected Mr Carlsen had hacked into his computer. The singer paid the younger man £300 of the £400 they had agreed.

In the next few weeks, they exchanged e-mails in which the singer accused Mr Carlsen of breaking into his computer system but then said that he would be “perfectly happy to see you naked asap”. He referred to Mr Carlsen’s “heavenly butt” and eventually they agreed to meet for a second time. It was when Mr Carlsen returned to the flat that things took a violent turn.

Mr Waterman told Judge David Radford today: "I ask you to sentence him on the basis that he did genuinely believe what he told the police – namely that Mr Carlsen had stolen photos from his computer and willingly or unwillingly interfered with his computer and was about to do something similar again.”

The barrister told the court that during the trial last year a friend of the singer had said that the case sounded like ‘two drug crazed idiots’. "I venture to submit there is a good deal of truth in that observation," he said.

Mr Waterman went on: "I recognise the use of prescribed substances provides no mitigation to those that have tasted riches and fame or anyone else."

He said that although O'Dowd had descended "into self destructive behaviour at the hands of drugs" there was a hope that was in the past.

The prosecution applied for costs of £5,000 and Mr Waterman said his client would not be able to pay that straight away. He also told the court that there was "an irony" that Mr Carlsen had made money from the incident from the media while the cost to his client "is truly tremendous."

O’Dowd swept the streets of New York in orange overalls in 2006 as his punishment for wasting police time after admitting to falsely reporting a burglary at his Manhattan apartment.

The conviction also means he will not be able to play a planned concert in New York for the Sanitation Department as a thank you for the support they had given him.

"This case was not about retribution for sexual rejection some four months earlier, the evidence does simply not justify that conclusion," Mr Waterman said. But he did accept that a "degree of violence and force" had been used to restrain Mr Carlsen.

The hearing continues today.

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