Noel Clarke accuses Guardian publisher of ‘fabricating’ evidence in libel claim

Actor Noel Clarke has accused the publisher of the Guardian newspaper of “perversion of the course of justice” by “fabrication” and deletion of evidence in his High Court libel claim against the publication.

The 49-year-old is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) over a series of articles, including one from April 2021, which said 20 women who knew Mr Clarke in a professional capacity had come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.

In a statement at the time, the former Doctor Who star vehemently denied any sexual misconduct or criminal wrongdoing.

GNM is defending the legal action on the grounds of truth and public interest.

A full trial of the claim is expected to be heard in March, but at a hearing on Wednesday, Mr Clarke’s lawyers applied for GNM’s defence case to be struck out.

In written submissions, Philip Williams, representing Mr Clarke, said: “The claimant submits there is overwhelming evidence not just of an attempt to pervert… but actual perversion of the course of justice.”

He also said: “Because of the deliberate and permanent deletion of personal correspondence between the three journalists that undertook the purported investigations, as well as fabrication, it is the claimant’s contention that it is impossible for the defendant to legitimately put forward a positive case that it reasonably believed publishing the defamatory articles were in the public interest.”

Mr Williams claimed that two freelance journalists had been instructed to “carry out wholesale deletion” of threads on Signal – an encrypted messaging app.

He also told the hearing in London that one of the messages said: “Delete this entire thread. I’ll create a new thread which will likely be disclosable in court.”

Another message said: “Can we delete all these threads and use the final thread from now on?”

In his submissions, Mr Williams said the messages illustrated “intent and taking steps to fabricate evidence”.

He added: “The defendant’s destruction of evidence was widespread and wholesale. It is something which they frankly admit.

“For example, the claimant maintains that four other group chats were set to auto-delete. This is admitted by the defendant.”

Mr Williams said it was “notable” that the messages instructed the two junior journalists to delete messages, and there was also the creation of a “carefully curated thread”, which would assist the publisher’s case.

He added: “The crux of the strike-out application is whether there had been perversion of the course of justice, or spoliation of evidence which renders a fair trial impossible.”

Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, told the court in written submissions that Mr Clarke seeks to deprive the publisher “of its right to the trial of its defences of truth and public interest”.

He said: “The application is a poor and opportunistic one for which there is no adequate evidential basis.

“It seeks to smear Guardian journalists and editors without any proper justification.

“In the light of the lack of evidence, it should be inferred that this is done purely tactically, in order to launder defamatory allegations about the defendant’s employees into the public domain.”

He added: “There is no evidence either that any evidence was ‘fabricated’.”

Mr Millar told the court: “None of this ‘evidence’ raises an arguable prima facie case of bad faith, still less criminal conduct against anyone.”

The hearing before Mrs Justice Steyn is expected to conclude on Wednesday.