Woman made Noel Clarke allegations after years of ‘guilt’, court told

By Nina Massey, PA Law Correspondent

A woman who told The Guardian that Noel Clarke allegedly groped her came forward after years of “guilt” over watching how he behaved with other women, the High Court has heard.

Gina Powell, who was part of Clarke’s production company Unstoppable between 2014 and 2017, alleges the actor groped her in an elevator, exposed himself to her in a car and brushed off concerns about his sexual behaviour towards other women.

She also told the court in London that the 49-year-old kept a hard drive of naked pictures of others.

Ms Powell is giving evidence in Clarke’s legal claim against Guardian News and Media (GNM).

He is suing the publisher of the Guardian over seven articles and a podcast, including an article in April 2021 that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct.

Clarke denies the allegations, while GNM is defending its reporting as being both true and in the public interest.

 

He claims several people who have made allegations against him are part of a conspiracy to defame him.

On Wednesday, Philip Williams, for Clarke, asked Ms Powell if she had “supplied” an anonymous email address she set up to others, so they could make allegations against the Doctor Who star.

He said: “You were doing everything you could to get as many people as possible to come forward, and you embellished in the emails, didn’t you?”

Ms Powell denied this, adding: “I don’t remember sending specific email addresses. It wasn’t that I knew they had an axe to grind.

“As a woman you can tell when another woman is uncomfortable.

“And there were so many, many women throughout the years who were like that.

“I did not lead from the front – I said there are some women that I felt their uncomfortability.”

When asked if she was doing everything she could to bring Clarke down, Ms Powell replied: “I was not doing everything I could.

“I was incredibly engrossed in my own grief and trauma at the time.

“It took a long time for me to be able to pull myself together to do anything.”

Ms Powell told the court she found the “strength” of her friend Johannah Whyte speaking out against Clarke “powerful” and it made her feel she had to put “action to words” and put her name “at the forefront to try and re-write some of the guilt that I had felt so much throughout the year”.

She added: “The guilt that I was complicit in seeing the things that Noel was doing – it was eating me up for many, many years.

“This was my way of saying ‘I am putting action behind my words’.”

Clarke denies the allegations, and in his witness statement he said: “Any explicit photographs in my possession were provided by the women in question consensually, and were kept privately and in confidence.”

In his written submissions, Mr Williams told the court Ms Powell is a “primary conspirator”.

He added: “Alongside other conspirators, Ms Powell also actively sought or encouraged a police investigation and/or criminal charges against the claimant on the basis of false allegations, thereby perverting the course of justice.

“Their goal in this common enterprise was to defame the claimant and cause him irreparable harm with regards to his reputation.”

The court also heard from Synne Seltveit, who met Clarke through her friend Ms Powell.

She alleges Clarke sent her an unsolicited picture of a penis, which she assumed was his.

In her witness statement, she said: “I was shocked that he sent this to me. I knew if I took a screenshot of the picture that he would know I had done it, as the app facilitated this, so I instinctively asked the friend I was with – who was just in the next room – to take a photo of the screen with her phone.”

Clarke denies the claim, saying in his witness statement that he did “not send her an unsolicited photograph of my penis”.

The hearing before Mrs Justice Steyn is due to conclude in April, with a decision expected in writing at a later date.