Latest news with #Kidulthood
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Guardian journalist received large number of leads after Noel Clarke article, court told
A Guardian journalist who has worked on high-profile investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct by men said the volume of fresh leads received after writing about Noel Clarke was the most she had ever witnessed. Lucy Osborne, who, with Sirin Kale, carried out the Guardian's investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against the Doctor Who actor, told the high court that she was 'taken aback' by how many people got in touch after publication of the first article. Clarke, 49, is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) over seven articles and a podcast published between April 2021 and March 2022 in which more than 20 women accused him of sexual misconduct. Osborne, who has also worked on investigations about David Copperfield and the former Elite model agency boss Gérald Marie, said in her witness statement: 'I remember being taken aback by the number of possible leads we received following the first article. 'By way of example, at least 25 new sources came forward between publication of the first article and the fourth article – a 24-hour period. Following the fourth article we continued to receive many unsolicited messages from individuals with new leads to our personal emails, the investigations inbox and both mine and Sirin's social media accounts. 'Our sources were also connecting us with people who had reached out to them. This volume of leads was far larger than I have experienced on any investigation before or since, including articles I have written about individuals more well-known than Mr Clarke.' Giving oral evidence on Tuesday, Osborne said the investigation received 'so many leads that it was impossible to follow up all of them'. In her witness statement she explained her communications with sources and how she and Kale went about corroborating allegations. She said expressions and types of sexual language used by Clarke came up repeatedly. 'For example, multiple sources described him talking about sexual acts with sex workers and two women who did not know one another said he told them he wanted to 'climb them like a tree' – a term that I felt was so specific it was unlikely to be a coincidence,' wrote Osborne. The beginning of her cross-examination by Clarke's barrister, Philip Williams, focused largely on Osborne's communications with Gina Powell, who previously worked for the writer-producer of the Kidulthood trilogy at Unstoppable Productions. Williams suggested that Powell, who started off as an assistant producer with Unstoppable, was part of a conspiracy to destroy Clarke's career because she had a 'financial grudge' against him. Osborne said in her witness statement that the journalists spoke to 12 people who provided information corroborating Powell's allegations. When Williams suggested to Osborne that it should have been of concern when Clarke told the Guardian that Powell was in dispute with him over money, she replied that Powell had already told her about it and that they had 'numerous conversations' concerning the matter. She described Powell as an 'upfront' and 'credible' witness. In her witness statement, Osborne said that Powell provided very detailed descriptions of the alleged incidents involving her former boss and appeared to be 'still scared of Mr Clarke and what he could do to her. She told me that she was worried that Mr Clarke would turn up on her doorstep and noted that she was scared of going to Soho in case she bumped into him. She also told me that she was concerned about the impact that speaking out publicly could have on her career. I did not anticipate she would decide to speak out publicly for that reason.' In the event, Powell's allegations against Clarke did appear alongside her real name in the first Guardian article. In her witness statement, she said she was quitting the industry because of her experience working with him. Earlier on Tuesday, in a similar vein to his questioning of Osborne about Powell, Williams put to the Guardian's head of investigation, Paul Lewis, that 'some sources clearly have axes to grind'. Lewis replied: 'The inference as I see it … is that's the reason they spoke to us, but I don't think the sources were speaking to us for that reason.' He told the court that the motivation of the sources was that they were alleged victims of sexual misconduct who wanted to 'hold him [Clarke] to account'.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Noel Clarke left women he thought spoke to Guardian ‘fearful and in tears'
The actor Noel Clarke made calls to some of the women he thought were cooperating with the Guardian prior to the publication of its investigation into his behaviour, leaving them 'shaken, fearful and in tears', the high court in London has heard. The Guardian's head of investigations, Paul Lewis, was giving evidence in defence of Clarke's libel claim against the news publisher over allegations of sexual misconduct. Detailing the steps taken during the investigation into allegations against the former Doctor Who star, Lewis said in his witness statement that he had become aware that Clarke and his business partner Jason Maza had been making calls to women they thought had spoken to the Guardian's reporters. The women had found the approaches upsetting and some had been left 'shaken, fearful and in tears', Lewis said. In the calls, Clarke had shown a willingness to apologise to some of his alleged sexual misconduct victims if they did not speak to the Guardian about him, the high court was told. Lewis told the court that what was said in the calls presented 'a very different picture' to Clarke's communications with the Guardian, which had included blaming Adam Deacon, an actor Clarke had mentored who was found guilty in 2015 of harassing Clarke, for the allegations. 'Mr Clarke was making what struck me as a highly implausible claim: that all 22 women were either fabricating claims about his behaviour, or mischaracterising events, potentially to settle grudges or grievances,' Lewis wrote in his statement. 'Mr Clarke was insisting that Mr Deacon was secretly coordinating these allegations, a conspiracy theory which was untrue.' Lewis said that he had the impression calls made by Clarke and Maza were an attempt at 'trying to keep a lid on … past unethical or inappropriate behaviour by Mr Clarke, and that he was potentially even prepared to apologise for it, but wanted to dissuade women from discussing such behaviour with journalists'. Lewis returned to the subject of the calls when Philip Williams, representing Clarke, put to the journalist that it was 'wholly unreasonable' to give his client 24 hours to respond to such serious allegations before publication. Lewis said in response that Clarke was eventually given 76 hours after requests for extensions. He explained that the timeframe reflected that Clarke had direct knowledge of all of the alleged incidents and had already addressed some of them to Bafta. Lewis said there were also fears he 'could intimidate people' he thought might have spoken to the Guardian in the hope they would withdraw their cooperation. The writer-producer of the Kidulthood trilogy, who is suing Guardian News and Media in relation to eight publications from 2021-22, alleges that Lewis and others were involved in a conspiracy to destroy his career. Williams put to Lewis that there had been 'a high degree of coordination' between sources before they approached the Guardian that should have rung 'alarm bells'. Lewis rejected that characterisation, stating: 'It would have been strange if everyone had come to us in an exact silo and none of them had ever spoken to each other.' In his witness statement, he said: 'I was struck by the large number of women, many of whom did not know one another, making allegations that were similar to one another in nature.' He said allegations were corroborated by contemporaneous written records, people who sources had confided in at the time and who the Guardian also spoke to. Lewis told the court that, in response to an allegation that Clarke filmed a 'gratuitous scene' that could never have been used because an actor's anus was visible, his solicitors, Simkins, initially responded by claiming it was 'required by the script', which a copy revealed to be untrue. Lewis said he believed that publication 'would hold Mr Clarke to account over these matters, and contribute to a wider debate about conduct by powerful figures in the workplace … If we opted not to publish, we believed there was a very real risk that Mr Clarke would continue to abuse his position as alleged, resulting in more victims.'
The Guardian
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Actor said Noel Clarke's Bafta award would hand him ‘loaded gun' against women, court told
A prominent actor said Noel Clarke's honorary award from Bafta was handing him a 'loaded gun' to seduce and silence women, the high court has heard. Jing Lusi, who stars in Gangs of London and Red Eye, is one of more than 20 women whose allegations of sexual misconduct by Clarke were reported by the Guardian in 2021-22 that form the basis of Clarke's libel claim against the publisher. In 2021, Bafta announced that it would give Clarke the outstanding British contribution to cinema award, although it was suspended after the revelations in the Guardian. In her witness statement, Lusi alleges that Clarke propositioned her over a dinner in 2018, 'describing sexual acts to me', repeatedly boasted about his 2009 rising star Bafta and then threatened her when she turned him down. The court was played audio of Lusi speaking to the Guardian journalist Sirin Kale in which the actor said of Clarke's honorary award: 'It's going to be a rape tool kit. You're handing him a rape tool, either he's going to use it to seduce women and lure them back to his lair or he's going to use it to silence them … It's terrifying. He couldn't stop talking about it [the 2009 award] in 2018.' Lusi, who also starred in Crazy Rich Asians, also said that the award was handing Clarke a 'loaded gun'. No allegations of rape were published by the Guardian. On Friday, Philip Williams, representing Clarke, asked Lusi whether she had ever made any such allegations against his client. She replied that she had not and was not accusing him of rape but when asked whether she wanted to retract her words about the award being 'a rape tool kit' she declined to do so. She also said on the call that the 2021 award was a box-ticking exercise 'because he's black'. Lusi told the court she believed that it was a response to Bafta having been accused of 'being too white' but her issue was that Clarke's body of work 'didn't warrant any award at that level'. She compared his 'mediocre' work unfavourably with that of Ang Lee, another person of colour, who received the Bafta fellowship award in 2021. When Williams suggested that she was 'professionally jealous' she laughed and denied it. Clarke returned to the witness box on Friday to respond to the discovery by his former best man and business partner, Davie Fairbanks, during the trial of a hard drive containing 15 photos of a woman given the pseudonym Ivy. Fairbanks claimed Clarke had sent them to him. Ivy said she had never seen them before. Clarke told the court: 'My explanation about him having the photographs is he stole them from my devices. I have never shared anyone's pictures, never have done, never would do. The only explanation is that Mr Fairbanks has … illicitly stored them for a decade and a half.' Gavin Millar KC, for the Guardian, suggested that Clarke had been forced to 'come up with a theory' after the photos were found but had no evidence to support it. The writer and producer of the Kidulthood trilogy denied Millar's assertions that he kept them for 'collateral' against women and that his argument – that he kept the photos in an unprotected folder on a laptop whose password he had given to his friend – was implausible. Clarke said that he had stored the photographs for 'aesthetic reasons' and that Fairbanks only had the laptop password in case anything ever happened to him. Apart from one more witness on 4 April attesting to the truth of the Guardian's reporting about Clarke, next week will be taken up by its journalists giving evidence, arguing that their reporting was in the public interest.
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Noel Clarke propositioned young woman in toilet cubicle, court told
A young runner on a Noel Clarke film left the industry for three years after the actor followed her into the women's toilets, pulled out a condom and propositioned her, the high court has heard. Philippa Crabb, now a production manager, was working in an entry-level position on Brotherhood, the last of the Kidulthood trilogy, written and produced by Clarke, when he offered her a small role as a nurse. In one of the articles that is the subject of the former Doctor Who actor's libel claim against the Guardian, Crabb detailed how Clarke asked her for a sexual favour in return for the part. In her witness statement she recalled another incident, not reported in the 2021-22 publications, which she said took place at the film's wrap party. 'Noel then came into the women's toilets … I went into a cubicle and, as I went to close the door, Noel opened it and came into it after me. I was at the back of what was quite a very small cubicle and he leaned against the door, facing me and blocking the way out. 'He pulled a condom out of his pocket and said something to the effect of: 'How about it then.' I said something about his wife and three kids, as I had seen them before on set. I can't remember his response in precise words but it was something along the lines of: 'I don't care.' His attitude in that moment changed. He went from friendly to defensive. I just felt huge pressure from him. 'I can't remember how I got out of the cubicle. He must have moved to the side or something and I pushed past and somehow I got away.' Philip Williams, representing Clarke, suggested she had made up the incident and not told the Guardian about it, citing a transcript of a conversation he said that she had with one of its journalists in which it was not mentioned. But Crabb said she had told the Guardian but requested that it not be included in the article when she realised her name was going to be published. Another witness on Wednesday was Helen Atherton, a standby art director whose allegations also featured in the Guardian's reporting. She said in her witness statement that Clarke subjected her to relentless 'looks, comments and gestures' about her bottom during her first two weeks on the set of Brotherhood. Asked by Williams why she did not simply say she did not like Clarke's 'bad jokes' immediately, Atherton replied: 'Unfortunately I think a lot of women do put up with treatment like that in the film industry – but hopefully that is changing – and that's why I didn't confront him.' However, she told the court that such behaviour usually came from those in more junior positions. 'I've never had any remarks from another director or someone in a hierarchy position,' Atherton told the court. Clarke admits commenting twice on her bottom but says he apologised and it was accepted. The court also heard from Synne Seltveit, a Norwegian friend of Clarke's assistant producer, Gina Powell. Seltveit claims Clarke sent her an unsolicited picture on Snapchat of 'a naked erect penis which I presumed was his' before her 2015 trip to the UK to see Powell. Williams questioned the timing, saying it did not make 'any logical sense' that Clarke would message her before he had even met her. But Seltveit said it would have been easy to find her on Snapchat, adding: 'He knew I was coming, he knew I was a good friend of Gina.' Her friend took a picture of the 'dick-pic', which the metadata dates to 4 June 2015, the court heard. Williams said: 'My client denies sending that picture and he denies that it's his penis.'
The Guardian
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Woman ‘carried shame' for years after Noel Clarke made sexual contact with her, court told
An actor carried a 'deep sense of shame' for years after Noel Clarke made unwanted sexual contact with her while filming an intimate scene, the high court has heard. Penelope*, a witness in Guardian News and Media's (GNM's) defence to Clarke's libel claim against the publisher, said in her witness statement that the former Doctor Who star got an erection when filming a sex scene with her. 'He was on top of me in the bed,' she said. 'When he first took down his trousers and pants, I felt his penis land on my pubic area. I tried to move myself up in the bed slightly so there would be distance between our genitals, but then his penis was touching me in between my legs right at the entry of my vagina. 'He was so close that I recall being worried in case he moved in further or ejaculated. I don't remember how many takes we did of this scene, in the various camera angles. There may have been four or five takes in each angle. His erect penis remained touching me in the same place throughout all of these takes.' Philip Williams, representing Clarke, who is suing the Guardian over publications from 2021-2022 accusing him of sexual misconduct, put to her that the incidents could not have occurred as other people would have witnessed them. But Penelope, giving evidence via videolink, said they would not have been able to see. She also rejected Clarke's contention that he was wearing a patch and nylon sock, telling the court he had told her he wanted to 'keep it natural'. Williams suggested that she did not tell anyone at the time because it did not happen but Penelope told the court it was because she felt 'shock and shame' and 'it was a really horrible thing to experience'. Writing in her witness statement about the promotion she did for the film, she said: 'I was under an obligation to promote and sell the film. It was not an option to say something negative. For many years after I did not tell people what had happened because I had not come to terms with it myself and I didn't want people to think badly of me. I carried a deep sense of shame.' Thalia Hambi-Fisher, a choreographer and dance teacher, who also gave evidence on Wednesday, told the court about a business meeting with Clarke the day after he received the Orange rising star award 2009 from Bafta. 'When we had finished the lunch, I got up to go to the bathroom,' she said in her witness statement. 'Out of the blue Noel asked me, since I was going there, to take a photo of my 'pussy' – for him. He said he loved photos of women's vaginas.' Williams said Clarke had a witness statement by the former EastEnders actor, Nabil Elouahabi, who did not give oral evidence, saying that Hambi-Fisher had flirted with with Clarke on a previous occasion. Hambi-Fisher denied doing so and when it was put to her that the writer-producer of the Kidulthood trilogy was not attracted to her, she replied: 'Well, he was interested in one part of my body.' Accused by Williams of 'jumping on the bandwagon', she said: 'I have nothing to gain from this at all.' The court also heard from Hugh Sherlock, whose witness statement states that he saw Clarke put his hands on the hips of a woman called Isla* while filming in a pub. He said Clarke 'pulled her into him and started saying 'I know what you want, you want my dick inside you'. He started fondling her breasts. She was visibly uncomfortable. Noel looked over at me and said 'that's what they all want, they want my dick inside them.'' Williams accused Sherlock of wanting to 'stick the knife in' because he does not like Clarke. Sherlock accepted that he does not like Clarke but denied that was his motivation for coming forward. The trial continues. *Not their real names
