Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey was “tried by social media” after he was accused of sexual assaults, a court has heard.

He is charged with nine sexual offences relating to four men allegedly committed between 2001 and 2013.

The 63-year-old American sat in the dock on Thursday at Southwark Crown Court in London as defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC gave a closing speech.

Mr Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner, denies all of the charges against him.

“What the defence suggests is that three people have lied and they have lied in ways and for reasons which, ultimately, will only ever be known to themselves,” said Mr Gibbs, who suggested the fourth complainant was intoxicated.

He told jurors: “It’s not a crime to like sex, even if you’re famous and it’s not a crime to have sex, even if you’re famous, and it’s not a crime to have casual sex.

“And it’s not a crime to have sex with someone of the same sex because it’s 2023 not 1823.”

He challenged the Crown’s claim that there was a “pattern of similarity” between the accusers because three claim Mr Spacey “grabbed” them by the crotch, a term Mr Spacey previously told the court he “objected” to.

He told the jury it was “easy” to lie convincingly, especially when it is about someone such as Kevin Spacey who he described as a man “who is promiscuous, not publicly out, although everyone in the businesses knows he’s gay who wants to be just a normal guy to drink beer and laugh and smoke weed and sit in the front and spend time with younger people who he’s attracted to”.

He said perhaps Mr Spacey had led “a bit of an odd life”, but that it was “a life that makes you an easy target when the internet turns against you and you’re tried by social media”.

“That’s when these claims were taken to the police, when it was, I suggest, only too easy to do and the prospects of a pay-off from the bandwagon were at their most irresistible.”

Mr Gibbs praised Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish for risking the “wrath of the internet” to be called as defence witnesses after they gave evidence via video link from Monaco on Monday.

Mr Spacey pleaded not guilty in January to three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.

He also previously denied four further charges of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.

A further charge of indecent assault, an alternative count, was added mid-trial – taking the total number of alleged offences listed on the indictment to 13.

On Wednesday, the four indecent assault charges, which were all alternative counts, were struck off by the judge, due to a “legal technicality” and not as a result of the prosecution abandoning any allegation.