Woman afraid Noel Clarke would ‘turn up on her doorstep’, journalist tells court

By Harry Stedman, PA

An employee of actor Noel Clarke was worried he would “turn up on her doorstep” if she publicly shared allegations of sexual assault against him, the UK High Court has heard.

Lucy Osborne, one of the two main Guardian reporters involved in the investigation and writing of articles about Clarke’s alleged conduct, said Gina Powell told her she was “almost groomed” by him when working for his production company Unstoppable.

Clarke is suing the newspaper’s publisher Guardian News and Media (GNM) over seven articles and a podcast, including the April 2021 article that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct.

The Doctor Who actor, 49, denies the allegations and claims several people who have made claims are part of a conspiracy to defame him.

Giving evidence at a High Court hearing on Tuesday, Ms Osborne, now a special projects correspondent at the newspaper, said she went over allegations made against Clarke by Ms Powell “again and again to check their consistency”.

Ms Powell, who was part of Clarke’s production company Unstoppable between 2014 and 2017, told her Clarke had allegedly exposed his penis to her whilst driving in a car on a trip to Los Angeles in 2015 and “encouraged her to ‘go on, touch it'”, while in a separate incident he is alleged to have cornered her in a lift and “grabbed her vulva”.

Ms Osborne was co-author of the first article about Clarke published by The Guardian in April 2021.

In a witness statement, she said: “(Ms Powell) presented as vulnerable and softly spoken. It appeared to me that she was 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.”

Ms Osborne said Ms Powell told her that much of her work as a producer at Unstoppable had gone unpaid and had been told her pay would be reduced.

Put to her by Philip Williams, representing Clarke, that the grievance was about pay and money and not an alleged sexual assault, Ms Osborne said: “We did know there was a dispute about money – I had numerous conversations with her about it.

“I was convinced that wasn’t her motivation for coming forward.”

A friend later told Ms Osborne that Clarke had grabbed Ms Powell’s breasts or crotch.

Mr Williams asked: “Did it trouble you that the account was somewhat different?”

Ms Osborne replied: “The confusion she had was only around the location that it happened.”

Asked by Mr Williams why she did not “push” the friend on the exact details of the incident, she said: “That would have been leading her in a certain direction and I didn’t want to do that.”

The court was then shown messages exchanged between Ms Powell and Clarke in April 2016, including an image sent by her of their faces overlaid on one another.

Addressing the messages, Ms Osborne told the court: “My reading of Gina was that she felt that she had been almost groomed by Mr Clarke and felt that she had to participate in his banter and be friendly with him.”

She said Ms Powell had been very transparent that her relationship with Clarke continued until she left Unstoppable in 2017, and that she had “kept up appearances with him as a form of self-protection”.

Asked by Mr Williams if she should have asked for the messages and if they would have changed her mind about publishing the allegations, Ms Osborne said: “I would not have changed my mind.”

Paul Lewis, The Guardian’s head of investigations, said he had less knowledge than the reporters on the allegations against Clarke as he also gave further evidence.

He acknowledged some of the sources had “other disputes” with Clarke, but rejected Mr Williams’ suggestion that The Guardian’s confidential sources were “conspirators” in a smear campaign against him.

Mr Lewis told the court: “There were people in the group who had strong views about Mr Clarke. As (with) any cross-section of society, there are different types of personalities.

“I don’t think there was anyone in the group who had motives towards Mr Clarke that were untoward or couldn’t be explained by their personal connection to the allegations.

“All of our sources behaved in a manner that I think spoke to their credibility.”

He said he did not believe there were problems with the investigation into the allegations.

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