Noel Clarke: Doctor Who star and Kidulthood creator arrested as cops raid family home in London after libel defeat
Actor and writer Noel Clarke has been arrested after police swarmed his family home in west London.
Detectives were seen leaving the former Doctor Who star’s Kensington home with boxes of items, that are believed to include laptops and documents. The five-hour raid took place on Thursday morning (September 25).
According to The Guardian, Clarke, 49, was arrested and questioned in custody. He was later released. The reason for his arrest is currently unknown. The Metropolitan Police has not yet commented on the reported arrest and raid.
It comes after the Kidulthood creator lost a libel action he brought against Guardian News and Media (GNM) after he was accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour by more than 20 women in an article published in The Guardian in April 2021.
Clarke, who denied the allegations, labeled the reporting “far-fetched” and “false”, adding that The Guardian had acted as the “judge, jury, and executioner” of his career. The actor and director, who was seeking up to £70m in damages, also claimed that he had been the victim of an unlawful conspiracy.
The Guardian said it had spoken to 30 people about their experience with Clarke, 26 of whom testified in court during the libel trial. GNM defended its reporting, calling it both true and in the public interest.
Mrs Justice Steyn accepted this reasoning and ruled in favour of GNM in her judgement last month, saying that there had been no conspiracy to lie and Clarke’s conspiracy claim had no “proper foundation”.
Clarke was ordered to pay £3,000,000 to the media group after losing his libel action. A detailed assessment is set to take place to calculate the total costs to be recovered, which could see the amount balloon to £6m.
Mrs Justice Steyn said at the time: “It seems to me that the sum of £3 million sought by the defendant is appropriate and no more than what ought to be reasonably ordered in this case. It is substantially lower than the defendant’s likely level of recovery on detailed assessment and so in my judgment, it does allow for a suitably wide margin of error.”
She continued: “The claimant maintained a far-fetched and indeed a false case that the articles were not substantially true, by pursuing allegations of dishonesty and bad faith against almost all of the defendant’s truth witnesses.”
Clarke grew to fame with his role on the BBC’s flagship sci-fi show Doctor Who, where he played Mickey Smith from 2005 until 2010. He went on to appear in films such as Star Trek: Into Darkness and SAS: Red Notice.
As a writer and director, Clarke became a prominent figure in the British film and TV industry after he created the hit film Kidulthood in 2006 and its follow-ups Adulthood (2008) and Brotherhood (2016). He also starred in all three crime films.
In 2009, he won the Bafta Rising Star Award and went on to be recognised for outstanding contribution to British cinema at the 2021 Bafta Awards. Bafta subsequently suspended his membership and his outstanding contribution prize after the allegations were published in The Guardian’s report in 2021.