'Untruthful' Clarke said he was the victim but 26 witnesses disagreed

“I think the world has just changed,” Noel Clarke told the judge while giving evidence in his libel case against the Guardian.

- Haroon Siddique

“I think we can all agree that things that were acceptable 10, 20 years ago are just no longer acceptable.”

While the actor also vehemently denied many of the claims against him, that, in essence, was one of the arguments he presented to the court. He was the victim.

Twenty-six witnesses who gave testimony against him over the course of a five-week trial, including women who described all manner of bullying, professional and sexual misconduct, painted a very different picture.

In yesterday’s high court judgment, the judge who presided over the case, Mrs Justice Steyn, came down clearly in favour of Clarke’s accusers. The Guardian ran two defences: arguing both that the articles about Clarke’s sexual misconduct were true, and that their publication was in the public interest. Steyn found overwhelmingly in favour of the Guardian on both counts.

In contrast, she found Clarke was “not a credible or reliable witness”, concluding that he was “untruthful about most of the allegations, in his efforts to salvage his career”.

Clarke’s claims of conspiracy… In his legal action over the Guardian’s articles accusing him of sexual misconduct, the former Doctor Who actor decried a “blanket [modern] lens” being cast on past actions. Dance moves at the Notting Hill carnival would be considered “assault” in other cultures, he said, and anyone his age who went to university would know that “uni lads and things, people get crazy and the things that happened back in those days would not be acceptable now”.

It was a theme echoed by Philip Williams in closing submissions, in which Clarke’s barrister highlighted the Benny Hill and Little Britain series as productions that would now be considered “inappropriate” as he said Clarke had been a victim of “historical revisionism”.