Noel Clarke: Actress said to have been groped by actor tells court ‘it is a lie’
An actress who was said to have been groped by Noel Clarke has defended the actor in his libel case against the Guardian, the High Court has heard.
Clarke is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) 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.
At a hearing on Friday, actress Louise Dylan said she heard through a friend that Clarke’s former business partner Davie Fairbanks had claimed he saw her being groped by Clarke at the wrap party for The Knot.
After learning of the current libel case she wrote an email to Clarke, who she described as a friend, in which she said the allegation was untrue, she said.
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She told the High Court in London: “Someone told the Guardian that he had assaulted me and I wrote this email because it was not true.
“A friend called me and I said this did not happen. I told Noel that he has my support because it is a lie.”
Read more: Why is Noel Clarke suing the Guardian?
She also said she never spoke to journalists from the Guardian.
The Guardian did not report the allegations about Ms Dylan.
She said: “They are reporters who are supposed to research an article before publishing something.
“I was told I had spoken to these journalists to corroborate a story but I had not.”
She said she had been at the wrap party with her friend and her boyfriend, following a group dinner beforehand.
She said she didn’t “remember [the wrap party] too well,” adding, “I don’t remember the specifics of the party other than we had a nice time”.
Philip Williams, representing Clarke, previously told the court in written submissions that the actor “has clearly established the falsity of all of the allegations”.
The barrister continued that his client was “barely able to reply to the allegations” published by the Guardian and was “perceived as a criminal by all those who previously trusted and worked with him”.
Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, said in his written submissions that the paper “did not simply accept what was said to it” and that “much time and resource was devoted to getting to the truth”.
He also said that there is “ample evidence” that all of the articles were true or substantially true.
Clarke, who is best known for his roles in Doctor Who and the Kidulthood movie trilogy, had his BAFTA membership and outstanding British contribution to cinema award suspended in 2021, following the allegations.
He later dropped a legal action he had brought against the charity.
The hearing before Mrs Justice Steyn is due to conclude next month, with a decision expected in writing at a later date.
:: This article has been updated to make clear that The Guardian did not report the allegations about Ms Dylan.
Entertainment
‘People want you to stay in your lane’: Reese Witherspoon on her ‘deeply personal’ decision to write a novel
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
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When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
Kim Kardashian has revealed that she has been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
- Footage from the latest season of The Kardashians shows the reality TV star going for an imaging scan.
The 45-year-old appears to suggest her small aneurysm may have stemmed from stress.
Brain aneurysms are relatively common, with data suggesting they affect about one in every 50 people.
In many cases, patients may be unaware that they have one – as they tend to cause few symptoms when unruptured.
Brain aneurysms are common but often go undiagnosed. iStock file pic
Should an unruptured aneurysm grow to a larger size, it can cause headaches, balance problems and speech issues.
Those that burst are extremely dangerous and can prove fatal in some circumstances.
While aneurysms can emerge throughout the body, they are most typically found in the aorta, which carries blood out of the heart.
Research suggests brain aneurysms are most common in adults between the ages of 30 and 60 – with women disproportionately affected.
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.
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