Kevin Spacey wept and said he was humbled after being cleared of sexual assault in one of the UK’s most high-profile #MeToo trials. The 64-year-old Oscar-winning actor sobbed in the dock as he was found not guilty on Wednesday of sexually assaulting four men after a four-week trial at Southwark crown court. Wearing a dark suit, pink shirt and burgundy pocket square and tie, Spacey looked at his legal team as jurors cleared him of nine sexual offences against four men. As he stood in the dock on his 64th birthday, the Hollywood star put his hand on his chest, looked at the jurors and mouthed: “Thank you, thank you.” The judge, Mr Justice Mark Wall, praised the lawyers in the case and said: “The defendant may be discharged.” Speaking outside the south London court, Spacey thanked the jury, who reached a verdict following 12 hours and 26 minutes of deliberating and after being given a majority direction by the judge. “I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process after what has just happened today,” he said. “But I would like to say that I’m enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all of the evidence and all of the facts, carefully, before they reached their decision. And I am humbled by the outcome today. “I also want to thank the staff inside this courthouse, the security, and all those who took care of us every single day, my legal team … for being here every day.” Spacey also thanked Evan Lowenstein, his business partner and manager, and Lowenstein’s British wife, Lucy, who attended the trial each day. Before Spacey’s tearful speech, jurors had waited outside the courthouse for him to emerge. Lowenstein, a 49-year-old former pop star, shook hands with two of the jurors and one could be heard telling him: “Well done.” Lowenstein and five jurors then went back inside the court’s foyer, where they were joined by Spacey. The actor was seen crossing his hands on his chest, bowing, and weeping as if to thank the jurors. Spacey hugged and kissed two security guards on the cheek before leaving the court. Fans gathered outside the court and shouted “we love you, Kevin” as he got into a taxi to leave. The actor, who stood trial under his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler, was found not guilty of nine sexual offences against four men in their 20s and 30s, between 2004 and 2013. He had denied the charges, claiming the allegations against him were “madness”, “absolute bollocks” and a “stab in the back”. He claimed the men were financially motivated and that one was after “money, money, and then money”. The prosecutor, Christine Agnew KC, had accused Spacey of being a “sexual bully” who exploited his fame and power to abuse the complainants. Jurors rejected the prosecution’s claims that Spacey had “aggressively” grabbed three men by the crotch and had performed a sex act on an aspiring actor while he was asleep in his flat. Spacey told the court that he had consensual sexual encounters with a driver and the aspiring actor, and that he may have made “a clumsy pass” at a man at a party in the Cotswolds. But he rejected claims that he had grabbed a man’s crotch “like a cobra” at a West End theatre in the mid-2000s, telling jurors: “It never happened.” In his evidence, Spacey gave jurors an insight into his relationship with famous faces and name-dropped fellow actors including Jack Lemmon, Val Kilmer, Richard Harris and Joan Collins. He also recounted showbiz anecdotes, including buying Dame Judi Dench a ping-pong table and buying “the most expensive Mini Cooper ever” at a charity auction hosted by Elton John. John and his husband, David Furnish, were called as defence witnesses in the trial. Spacey had previously denied 12 charges – seven sexual assaults, three indecent assaults, one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. A further charge of indecent assault was added mid-trial, taking to 13 the total number of alleged offences listed on the indictment. Last Wednesday, the four indecent assault charges were struck off by the judge because of a “legal technicality”. The court heard that two of the complainants in the case were pursuing Spacey in the civil courts.