Nikki Sanderson had ‘hair set on fire’ after tabloids ‘painted her as promiscuous’, Prince Harry hacking trial told
Soap star Nikki Sanderson suffered abuse as a young woman over tabloid stories insinuating she was “promiscuous”, the High Court has heard – including people “screaming insults” and one incident when her hair was “set on fire”.
The actress, who now stars in Hollyoaks but rose to fame as a teenager when she landed the role of Candice Stowe in Coronation Street in 1999, followed Prince Harry in the witness box to give evidence against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror.
Answering cross-examination questions on Friday, Ms Sanderson, 39, at one point became emotional and said reliving details of stories written about her had been “traumatic”.
She also accused MGN of “gaslighting” in their denial of her allegations.
Mirror hacking allegations court case – as it happened
It is alleged that journalists at MGN titles – which also include the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called “blagging” or gaining information by deception, and the use of private investigators for unlawful activities.
Ms Sanderson, who starred in Coronation Street from 1999 to 2005, alleges the information in some 37 articles, published between 2003 and 2009, was obtained through forms of unlawful information gathering.
MGN says her claim has been brought too late and denies unlawful activity save for four occasions in 2004 and 2005, when its journalists instructed private investigators to obtain information about her.
Writing about the impact tabloid intrusion had on her life in a witness statement, Ms Sanderson described “stories insinuating that I was promiscuous” as “very distressing”.
One story made her out to be “bed-hopping and sleeping with three people in one week”, she said, which was “so far removed from the truth” – but the lines between her and her TV soap character had been “blurred”.
Key points from witness statements
- Statements from Nikki Sanderson’s mum, ex-boyfriend, and actress Tina O’Brien have also been submitted in support of her case
- Coronation Street star Ms O’Brien compares media interest to “toxic relationship”
- Ms Sanderson’s mum tells how her daughter became paranoid and “lost some of her sparkle”
- Ex-partner Danny Young, who also starred in Corrie, says being a famous actor “is not all it’s cracked up to be”
Sanderson pictured at the British Soap Awards earlier in June
‘People would elbow me, push me’
Describing “the backlash” from the public, Ms Sanderson wrote: “I was subjected to both mental and physical abuse.
“People would shout at me in the street, calling me a whore, a slag or a slut.
“People would elbow me, push me and, on one occasion, a group of girls even set my hair on fire.”
This happened in a nightclub toilet, she said.
Ms Sanderson said: “I was washing my hands and I smelt burning. I looked down and they had set fire to the back of my hair.”
She also described another occasion when she felt forced to barricade herself in a toilet at a bowling alley after being threatened by a group of girls.
“This kind of thing was constant,” she said.
Ms Sanderson (left) and Coronation Street star Tina O’Brien at the Inside Soap Awards party in 2002
‘Like serial killer dramas’
In her statement, Ms Sanderson recalls paparazzi photographers following her to take pictures while she was on holiday, describing their actions as “creepy, like those things you see on serial killer dramas”.
She also criticises MGN for “hiring random men to follow” her.
“I was a young girl at the time… they could have done anything to me,” she wrote.
In court, she said she felt like she could not “go places without someone watching”.
Ms Sanderson claims MGN’s alleged “illegal activities” have had a “huge impact” on her life and left her paranoid about sharing information, even with friends and family.
At one point, she suspected a Coronation Street press officer of leaking information about her, she wrote in her witness statement – something she feels “awful” about now.
Read more on the case against MGN:
Ex-Mirror royal correspondent gives evidence
Harry’s moment in court is over – was he or the King right?
‘I said that and I stand by that’
She uses the word “abuse” several times throughout her statement, saying at the end that she does not do so lightly.
“These people were in positions of power,” she wrote. “I was attacked by people who were more powerful than me.”
“I said that and I stand by that,” she told Andrew Green KC, who is representing MGN in court.
Asked by Mr Green about this part of her statement in court, the actress replied: “The behaviour has been horrific, the gaslighting I feel has gone on with me. The fact that I’m having to do this today is traumatic.”
Mr Green then asked the actress: “If you consider your treatment by MGN to be tantamount to child abuse… why were you giving an interview to the Daily Mirror in 2019?”
Ms Sanderson said it was a planned piece for Valentine’s Day and later told the court there was a difference with prepared interviews which were under her “control”.
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Prince Harry court case evidence explained
Mr Green showed the court instances where Ms Sanderson would willingly speak to the media.
He said that, “entirely fairly”, the actress needed media publicity “in order to continue to promote” her career.
He also showed the court features including one showing Ms Sanderson posing in lingerie for a men’s magazine.
In her witness statement, Ms Sanderson said it was not “fair” and added “insult to injury” for MGN to rely on press stories and photo shoots she consented to.
Working on a TV soap you “have an obligation to do certain interviews, television programmes and photoshoots”, she wrote.
“There is a massive difference between something you are aware of and in control of versus the defendant hacking into my voicemail messages against my will or hiring people to follow me and take photographs of me.”
Prince Harry’s case has now finished
Evidence is ‘weak’, MGN argues
Ms Sanderson’s barrister David Sherborne previously told the court that the actress only became aware she had a potential claim against MGN after chatting with her Hollyoaks co-star Gary Lucy.
The actress had suspected friends, people working on Coronation Street, and members of the public of selling stories about her, and therefore “didn’t suspect unlawful methods being used” until she spoke to Mr Lucy about it in 2019, Mr Sherborne said.
In response on Friday, Mr Green told the court that the evidence in Ms Sanderson’s case is “weak” and MGN does “not accept that it establishes a case of voicemail interception” nor that it shows “systemic hacking” of her phone.
Read more:
The people named in Harry’s witness statement
Harry’s evidence – watch reconstructions of key moments
The publisher has denied that 35 of the 37 articles involved phone hacking or unlawful information gathering, with one article being not admitted.
MGN has said Ms Sanderson’s claim has been brought too late, but “unreservedly apologises” over four payments made to private investigators which it admits are evidence of instructions to unlawfully obtain her private information.
Prince Harry and Ms Sanderson are two of four representative claimants whose evidence against MGN is being heard at the High Court, alongside Coronation Street actor Michael Turner, known professionally as Michael Le Vell, and comedian Paul Whitehouse’s ex-wife Fiona Wightman.
Entertainment
‘I felt really scared and I felt alone’ – Wicked star Jonathan Bailey on growing up gay in school
“I felt scared and I felt alone and I felt entirely limited at various points in my life”, actor Jonathan Bailey says of growing up gay in school.
While promoting Wicked: For Good, the actor donated one of his interview slots to talk about the charity he is a patron of: Just Like Us, which works with LGBT+ youth in schools.
“That’s something that I would have really benefited from when I was young,” he said, talking exclusively to Sky News about his charitable work.
In surveys of thousands of UK pupils, Just Like Us found that LGBT participants aged 11 to 18 were twice as likely to suffer anxiety, depression and to be bullied, and that only half felt safe at school on a daily basis.
“I experienced all of that,” he said. “It became clear quite early on that something that was very specific and clear to me about who I was, it wasn’t safe and it wasn’t celebrated.”
Whether as Lord Anthony in Bridgerton, being crowned sexiest man alive and as the Winkie Prince Fiyero in Wicked: For Good, Bailey has broken through an outdated stereotype.
Historically, it was considered a career risk to be out – a heterosexual romantic lead’s career was at risk if his sexuality was public.
For the Winkie prince actor, education can play a role in defying limitations.
While promoting Wicked: For Good, Bailey talked about a charity that works with LGBT+ youth in schools.. File pic: Just Like Us
“This is beyond sexuality,” he said, “it’s race, it’s class, it is where you’re from, we are all given limiting narratives that we have to break free of.
“I thought not only was I not going to be able to play these sorts of parts because of my sexuality, but that I wouldn’t be able to do Shakespeare because I didn’t go to drama school.
“They’re the sort of stories that we need to be reminded of is that actually standing up and being safe enough to be able to say who you really are, and to be vulnerable at that age… these formative years, is inspiring to everyone in the classroom.”
But classrooms in the UK are facing tightening budgets due to “spiralling costs” that threaten to outstrip the growth in school funding.
Citing budget and time pressures on teachers, Just Like Us has made its talks free in schools. Does the actor think the government should be doing more?
He said: “I’m a very proud brother of an incredible teacher who works in the state system, and I know how much she cares about her school, her pupils.
“The resources are being crunched, and the problem is that it will be the arts and it will be really important conversations that Just Like Us bring into the schools and these… things that are going to go, and that’s just really sad.
“But I’m not the person to come up with solutions other than I can do my bit.”
Bailey, Cynthia Erivo and Bowen Yang are among Wicked’s LGBT cast, and in Wicked: For Good, openly gay actor Colman Domingo joins them as the voice of the Cowardly Lion.
But not everyone is encouraging the onscreen representation: A “warning” by conservative group One Million Moms said that the Jon M Chu-directed films are “normalising the LGBTQ lifestyle” to children and takes aim at the cast.
The alert urges people to boycott the sequel “even if you have seen Wicked: Part One”.
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When asked about the pushback, Bailey is resolute: “I don’t even acknowledge… the thing that’s important to me is how do I chat to little Johnny in all this.
“I’m thrilled to be living in a time where I can play the Winkie Prince and where Just Like Us is doing the extraordinary work that they’re doing.”
Entertainment
Donald Trump confirms he will sue the BBC over Panorama edit – despite broadcaster’s apology
Donald Trump has said he will sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn over the editing of his speech on Panorama.
The US president confirmed he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster while on Air Force One overnight on Saturday.
“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he told reporters.
“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
Mr Trump then told reporters he would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over the weekend, and claimed “the people of the UK are very angry about what happened… because it shows the BBC is fake news”.
The Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month that an internal memo raised concerns about the BBC’s editing of a speech made by Mr Trump on 6 January 2021, just before a mob rioted at the US Capitol building, on the news programme.
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BBC crisis: How did it happen?
The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of the president’s speech to make it appear he told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell” in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.
Following a backlash, both BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness resigned from their roles.
‘No basis for defamation claim’
On Thursday, the broadcaster officially apologised to the president and added that it was an “error of judgement” and the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.
A spokesperson said that “the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” but they also added that “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn unless it apologised, retracted the clip, and compensated him.
The US president said he would sue the broadcaster for between $1bn and $5bn. File pic: PA
Legal challenges
But legal experts have said that Mr Trump would face challenges taking the case to court in the UK or the US.
The deadline to bring the case to UK courts, where defamation damages rarely exceed £100,000 ($132,000), has already expired because the documentary aired in October 2024, which is more than one year.
Also because the documentary was not shown in the US, it would be hard to show that Americans thought less of the president because of a programme they could not watch.
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Key findings in 20,000 pages of documents in the Epstein files
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Sky’s Katie Spencer on what BBC bosses told staff on call over Trump row
Newsnight allegations
The BBC has said it was looking into fresh allegations, published in The Telegraph, that its Newsnight show also selectively edited footage of the same speech in a report broadcast in June 2022.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”
Video footage has shown the moment singer and actress Ariana Grande was accosted by a fan at a film premiere.
Ms Grande was in Singapore for the debut of Wicked: For Good when the incident unfolded on Thursday.
The video captured the moment the fan scaled the barricade and pushed past photographers towards Ms Grande.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
He then threw his arms around her, before co-star Cynthia Erivo intervened and security swoops in to stop him.
The man, now identified as Johnson Wen, 26, is reportedly a notorious red carpet crasher.
Wen, who has since been charged with being a public nuisance, goes by the nickname Pyjama Man, and gloated as he shared footage of the intrusion online.
“Dear Ariana Grande, Thank You for letting me Jump on the Yellow Carpet with You,” he wrote on Instagram.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
In video stories posted to the site beforehand, he was seen at the Universal Studios venue, revealing his intentions.
In one, he said: “I feel like I’m in a dream, that’s my best friend, Ariana Grande, and I’m gonna meet her. I’ve been dreaming about that.”
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The Australian has ambushed several performers on stage, according to reports, including Katy Perry and The Chainsmokers at concerts in Sydney, and The Weeknd in Melbourne.
It has been reported that Wen intends to plead guilty and that he could face a fine of more than £1,000.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo at the London premiere for Wicked: For Good
Ms Grande took a moment to gather herself in the aftermath of the intrusion, visibly shocked by the incident.
She didn’t address the incident on her own Instagram, but shared some photos with the caption “thank you, Singapore”, adding “we love you”.
The singer battled post-traumatic stress disorder after her 2017 concert in Manchester was bombed, leaving 22 people dead.
She told Vogue in 2018: “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe, tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing.
“I know those families and my fans, and everyone there experienced a tremendous amount of it as well. Time is the biggest thing.
“I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about my own experience – like I shouldn’t even say anything. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”
In the same interview she also addressed her own anxiety, saying she has “always” had it.
Ms Grande plays Galinda Upland in Wicked: For Good, the character who becomes Glinda the Good Witch. Ms Erivo plays Elphaba, the character who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
The film is released in UK cinemas on 21 November.
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