A childhood friend of Noel Clarke saw one of the women accusing the former Doctor Who star of sexual misconduct grope him in a “playful” manner, the high court has heard.
Clarke, 49, is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) for libel over seven articles and a podcast containing allegations of misconduct against him, published between April 2021 and March 2022.
One of the women who will give evidence for the Guardian is Gina Powell, a film producer and documentary maker, who worked for Clarke’s company Unstoppable Productions from 2014 to 2017.
On Monday, Philip Dore, who worked for Unstoppable from 2014 t0 2015, said that he saw Powell grope Clarke at the premiere for the film Scottish Mussel at the Edinburgh festival in 2015.
The court heard that, in his witness statement, Dore had described Powell as touching his childhood friend “in a friendly way on his buttocks”.
Gavin Millar KC, representing GNM, said: “That’s not groping, is it?”
Dore replied: “If someone touches your buttocks, how else would you describe it? … She playfully touched his arse.”
Clarke previously told the court that Powell groped him on his bottom “multiple times” on a trip to Edinburgh.
Under cross-examination by Millar, Dore denied saying to Powell on a separate occasion that she was “asking for it” by wearing a short skirt and that she “shouldn’t wear short skirts around Noel”.
He also denied that when he met Powell in 2017 and heard that she had left Unstoppable he had advised her “to leave quietly and keep her mouth shut”. Dore said: “I categorically did not tell Gina to keep her mouth shut.”
Dore told the court that Clarke had been “very protective” of Powell, treating her like “a little sister” because she was a woman working in the film industry, he knew one of her family and “wanted her to be treated with respect”.
It has emerged that at least five of the 15 people who were supposed to give oral evidence in support of Clarke’s claim will no longer be doing so.
They include the former EastEnders actor, Nabil Elouahabi, who was due to be cross-examined on Monday. The court heard he would no longer be appearing before it.
So far, nine witnesses have given oral evidence for Clarke, including Clarke himself. A summons to appear in court has been sent to a 10th witness Arnold Oceng, who appeared in Clarke’s films Brotherhood and Adulthood, but Millar said he he was not living at his given address nor had he responded to a WhatsApp message. The reasons for witnesses not appearing have not been disclosed in court.
GNM’s witnesses, of whom there are 32 in total, will begin giving oral evidence on Tuesday. An application for GNM to add another witness, Anita (not her real name), was rejected by the judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, on Monday after Clarke’s legal team opposed it.
Millar said Anita had come forward in response to media coverage of the trial.
The court heard that her proposed evidence included that Clarke pressured her to allow him to take an explicit photograph of her in a public place in Soho House in central London.
Steyn said that while Anita’s evidence was “of some importance” it was not critical, given the other evidence available and could delay the trial.
