Actor Noel Clarke has lost a bid to get the Guardian publisher’s defence in his libel claim struck out ahead of a trial.
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 Clarke in a professional capacity had come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.
In a statement at the time, the former Doctor Who actor “vehemently” denied “any sexual misconduct or wrongdoing”.
GNM is defending the legal action on the grounds of truth and public interest.
At a hearing on Wednesday, Clarke’s lawyers applied for GNM’s defence case to be struck out ahead of a full trial expected to be heard in March.
But Mrs Justice Steyn rejected the application, saying that written reasons for her decision would be provided at a later date.
Earlier in the day, Philip Williams, representing Clarke, accused the publisher of “perversion of the course of justice” by “fabricating” and deleting evidence, a claim described by the GNM’s lawyers as “absolutely hopeless”.
In written submissions, Williams told the court: “The claimant submits there is overwhelming evidence not just of an attempt to pervert… but actual perversion of the course of justice.”
He continued: “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.”
Williams claimed that two freelance journalists had been instructed to “carry out wholesale deletion” of threads on Signal – an encrypted messaging app.
However, Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, told the court the actor’s lawyers had not pointed to any evidence to back up their claim that evidence had been fabricated and that there were “fatal flaws” in Clarke’s case.
In his written submissions, Millar said: “There is no evidence either that any evidence was ‘fabricated’.
“(The) claimant’s evidence does not point to a single document that was allegedly forged or fabricated.”
He added: “Litigants should not bring on applications of this exceptional nature, nor make allegations of serious criminal misconduct, without a proper evidential basis.”
Millar also said the publisher had a policy of minimising how much data it stores for data protection reasons.
He added: “Prior to 2021, Signal did not have a feature to enable auto-delete to be the default setting for new message threads and so this would have to be enabled or actioned manually for each new thread”.
Announcing her decision at the end of the hearing, Mrs Justice Steyn said: “The decision on the application to strike out is that I am going to reject that application.”
After the hearing, a Guardian spokesperson said: “Today, the judge rejected Noel Clarke’s application to strike-out our defence.
“Lawyers for the Guardian told the court there is not one scintilla of evidence that journalists ‘fabricated’ evidence – a very serious claim made to launder into the public domain allegations that couldn’t have been made outside court.
“Our reporting on Noel Clarke in 2021 was based on the accounts of 20 brave women. After we published our first article, more women came forward.
“At trial, 32 witnesses are set to testify against Mr Clarke under oath. We look forward to a judge hearing the evidence.”
[Read more: Actor Noel Clarke faced ‘trial by media’ after Guardian reports of misconduct, High Court told]
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