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.
A drill rapper turned TikTok wildlife presenter hopes to “bridge the gap” between young people and climate change.
Growing up in Ladbroke Grove, west London, former music star TY was stabbed four times. He had fallen “into nonsense”, he says, but he always wanted something different for his life.
Wildlife and the environment are his real passions. Nowadays, you are more likely to see TY with a boa constrictor clamping on to his arm in the Amazon, or letting a tarantula crawl across his hands.
He tells Sky News he wants to help people “understand the severity of the planet right now”, but the route to his new calling hasn’t exactly been a straightforward path.
“I never had purpose,” the rapper explains. “Three or four years ago, I would not have seen myself in this light… As I fell into wildlife, I found myself again.”
Sky News’ Katie Spencer braves holding a snake
Collaborations with US wildlife enthusiast Garrett Galvin – aka fishingarrett, one of the biggest wildlife content creators in the world – have certainly helped when it comes to amassing a growing following on social media as TYfromtheWyld.
But TY already had a substantial number of fans from his days as a platinum-selling drill rapper, having found fame as a member of the pioneering rap collective CGM (formerly known as 1011).
Alongside rapper Digga D, he made headlines when police caught the pair and three others in possession of machetes and baseball bats in 2017.
They ended up being given one of the UK’s very first music criminal behaviour orders, with the police arguing their songs incited violence – a move which triggered a debate about art censorship.
‘I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me’
“It’s a rough area, Ladbroke Grove, where I’m from,” says TY. “Crime started happening, I started getting into nonsense on the roads and as a young kid growing up you can get easily influenced by some stuff, so I kind of was lost for a while.
“Music was never my passion, I just fell into it. I grew up watching [TV naturalists and conservationists] Steve Backshall, Steve Irwin, but that world was so distant for me. I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me.
“Now I want to represent and be an inspiration for young people.”
Pic: @tyfromthewyld
Rapper AJ Tracey, who grew up in the same area of London as TY, says people need to understand that it’s all too easy to drift down the wrong path.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that people aren’t choosing to be in the situation that they are… anyone who wants to change their life and do something positive 100% deserves a second chance, honestly, probably even a third or fourth chance, because we’re all humans and we make mistakes.”
Just don’t expect Tracey to be making an appearance in any of TY’s videos anytime soon.
“He’s with some dangerous animals,” he laughs. “I don’t know about that, I’m scared!”
Pic: @tyfromthewyld
On a more serious note, Tracey says successive British governments could learn from TY’s skills at engaging with young people.
“I feel like when the country’s making budget cuts, it’s the youth that miss out all the time… the people in power have got to really pull some things together.”
While there might not seem an obvious crossover between drill music and learning about the ecosystem, TY’s success clearly demonstrates that an audience is there.
“We’re not doing enough to help,” he says. “This is my mission, to save animals, save the world, and get as many people on board as I can.
“Maybe a guy like me, from a certain background, will just kick a lot of people up to just say, ‘Yo. He’s doing something’.”
Entertainment
Gene Hackman’s wife died from rare infectious disease around a week before actor’s death, medical investigator says
Gene Hackman’s wife died from a rare infectious disease around a week before the actor died, medical investigators have said.
The couple were found dead in their New Mexico home on 26 February, along with one of their pet dogs. Police have previously said there were no apparent signs of foul play.
At a press conference on Friday, chief medical investigator for New Mexico, doctor Heather Jarrell, gave an update on the results of post-mortem investigations carried out following their deaths.
Doctor Jarrell said Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare infectious disease. There were no signs of trauma and the death was a result of natural causes, she said.
Actor Gene Hackman with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, pictured in 2003. Pic: AP
The doctor said Arakawa likely died on 11 February, the date she was last known to have communicated with people via email.
She said Hackman had advanced Alzheimer’s and died from heart disease, with data from his pacemaker last registering on 18 February.
Due to his Alzheimer’s, “it’s quite possible he was not aware that [his wife] was deceased,” Dr Jarrell added.
The actor tested negative for hantavirus, a rare disease spread by infected rodent droppings.
Gene Hackman in 1999. Pic: AP
Humans can contract hantavirus by breathing in contaminated air, and symptoms can start as soon as one week, or as long as eight weeks, later. It is not transmissible from person to person.
There were just seven confirmed cases of hantavirus in New Mexico last year, and Arakawa is the only person confirmed to have contracted it in the state in 2025. Between 1975 and 2023, New Mexico recorded a total of 129 hantavirus cases, with 52 deaths.
Santa Fe County sheriff Adan Mendoza said authorities are still waiting for data from mobile phones found at the property, but it is “very unlikely they are going to show anything else”.
“There’s no indication” that Hackman used a mobile phone or any other technology to communicate and the couple lived a very private life before their deaths, he added.
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Bill Murray’s tribute to Gene Hackman
The cause of the couple’s dog’s death has not been confirmed but it is now known that Arakawa had picked the animal up from the vet, where it had undergone a procedure, on 9 February.
The procedure “may explain why [the dog] was in a crate at the residence” while two surviving dogs were found roaming the property, Mr Mendoza said.
Hackman, who was widely respected as one of the greatest actors of his generation, was a five-time Oscar nominee who won the best actor in a leading role for The French Connection in 1972 and best actor in a supporting role for Unforgiven two decades later.
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Morgan Freeman paying tribute to Gene Hackman at the Oscars. Pic: AP/Chris Pizzello
At last Sunday’s Academy Awards, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to Hackman. “A community lost a giant and I lost a dear friend,” he said.
He met Arakawa, a concert pianist, in the mid-1980s and the pair married in 1991.
Brian James, founding member of The Damned, has died aged 70.
The guitarist, who was part of the group’s original line-up, wrote the first UK punk single New Rose and helped the band create their debut album, 1977’s Damned Damned Damned.
A spokesperson for record label Easy Action said: “I can confirm that Brian passed away peacefully yesterday with his family present.”
The Damned in 1978. Pic: Sheila Rock/Shutterstock
James’ fellow band member, bassist Raymond “Captain Sensible” Burns, said in an Instagram post: “The riffmeister, Brian has gone – that final act that happens to us all, for most is a sad and miserable affair but while it’s truly awful our mate has been taken I prefer to celebrate the life… and what a life Brian James had.”
He added: “And looking back I have to say what an absolute gent Brian was… despite having to occasionally endure some pretty appalling behaviour by yours truly he never once lost it with me – and whenever we met over the following decades we would have a drink and a bloody good laugh.”
A statement on James’ Facebook page said he was “one of the true pioneers of music, guitarist, songwriter, and true gentleman” and a musician who was “incessantly creative and a musical tour de force” over his long career.
It said: “With his wife Minna, son Charlie, and daughter-in-law Alicia by his side, Brian passed peacefully on Thursday 6 March 2025.”
The Damned supported the Sex Pistols on their Anarchy Tour of the UK and went on to play with T Rex on Marc Bolan’s final tour before he died.
James left the band after it released its second album, Music For Pleasure, and was part of the short-lived Tanz Der Youth before he formed The Lords Of The New Church with American singer Stiv Bators and drummer Nick Turner.
The band released the songs Open Your Eyes, Dance With Me and Method To My Madness.
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James went on to work with The Dripping Lips, create his own band the Brian James Gang, and release solo albums.
In 2020 he and The Damned lead singer Dave Vanian, drummer Christopher “Rat Scabies” Millar and Burns announced the band would reform more than four decades after it began in 1976.
James performed with the group in 2022.
Burns said: “When BJ, Rat, DV and myself got back together for The Damned originals shows it was magical in all sorts of ways… that we were chums again of course but also the way we managed to recreate our ’76 garage punk sound right from the first chord in rehearsals.
“We were all up for doing it again too… but that’ll never happen now, sadly.”
The band’s set in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday would be dedicated to James, he added, “without whom The Damned would never ever have happened”.
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