Why did Britain’s luvvies turn a blind eye to predator Spacey?

As the Yard launches an investigation into claims he sexually assaulted a young man in London — at the very time he was being feted by Britain’s cultural elite — the uncomfortable question...

AS THE night went on, the live music would get ever louder, forcing excitable drinkers to get closer and closer in order to be heard.

Add to that the fact the bar rapidly became packed — bodies bumping into each other — and that it was open far later than any other local watering hole, and you begin to understand why The Pit Bar, hidden beneath the stage of London’s Old Vic Theatre, was one of Kevin Spacey’s favoured pick-up joints.

Spacey, who was the theatre’s artistic director from 2004 to 2015, didn’t feel the need to travel very far from the office when he wanted to behave disgracefully, it seems.

While he may have been famously cautious in his media dealings, consistently refusing to discuss his sexuality, he was incredibly indiscreet out of hours.

A number of young men who have come forward this week to tell of their dealings with the actor describe a man who was worryingly predatory.

For example, I’m told some years ago he invited a male acquaintance, whom he’d known all of ten minutes, to ‘come outside and explore’ after meeting him in The Pit.

‘He was quite insistent about it and it was simply excruciating,’ the young man told me.

Then there was Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos, who says that he was groped in the bar by Spacey, but shrugged it off as ‘one of those things’.

‘There are many of us who have a Kevin Spacey story,’ Cavazos said. ‘It seems you only needed to be a man under 30 for him to feel free to touch us. It was so common that it turned into a joke among us.’

He claimed the actor would ‘squeeze whoever caught his attention’.

And a barman at The Pit — now closed down — said: ‘I saw and experienced him being very predatory towards young men. They were actors and it kind of became a joke. I know of several straight young actors, some acquaintances of mine, who Kevin showed an interest in.

‘Hand on lower backs — “The Kevin Spacey Hug” — became a thing. I saw a few of them leave with him, too. He was pretty touchy-feely with the guys he liked.’ The bartender insisted that the young men were consenting.

THE

shenanigans apparently took place upstairs at the Old Vic, too. I’m told one well-known young actor took to locking his dressing room door because Spacey, 58, was in the habit of calling in to chat — and, with unsettling timing, would regularly do so when he was showering.

A friend said: ‘ He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he felt pestered by Kevin sexually, and he’s not alone.’

Away from the Old Vic, Spacey’s behaviour was just as disconcerting.

One source told me this week that during one night in 2013 after making a keynote speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Spacey was seen propositioning three men in the space of an hour in the bar of the city’s upmarket George Hotel ( which is now called The Principal).

‘He was very polite about it,’ says my source, who witnessed it all. ‘ What made it peculiar was that they were all media journalists. I mean, if you are trying to stay in the closet it is a really odd way to behave.’

And these are just a of many revealing stories that are coming to light since Spacey was this week accused of making deeply inappropriate drunken sexual advances towards a 14-year-old American actor, Anthony Rapp, some 30 years ago.

Spacey responded quickly, saying that he didn’t remember the incident, but that he was ‘beyond horrified’ by it.

Spacey also, controversially, chose that precise moment to come out as gay.

Last night, it emerged that Spacey is being investigated by British police over allegations that he assaulted a young actor at his London flat in 2008 after a party where they had smoked marijuana. The actor says that he awoke to find Spacey performing a sex act on him.

Trouble has been bubbling for the Oscar- winning star for weeks, after former U.S. news anchor Heather Unruh tweeted that Spacey had ‘assaulted’ a relative of hers.

Ms Unruh, who had been moved to come forward because of the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, declined to expand on her statement.

If it hadn’t been for Rapp’s testimony, Spacey’s habit of soliciting young men for sex might not have come to light.

The charge sheet took an even darker turn this week when another man — who remains anonymous — accused Spacey of attempting to rape him in 1983 when he was aged just 15. The alleged victim also claimed that Spacey, who was then 24, had first had consensual sex with him when he was 14.

The actor also reportedly told the anonymous accuser that he had been ‘drawn to him’ from the moment they first met, when the boy was aged only 12.

According to the Vulture showbiz website, which interviewed Spacey’s accuser, he claimed that they had first met when Spacey was his teacher at an upstate New York theatre camp — adding an even more worrying element to the allegation. Spacey has emphatically