\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he high court\u2019s dismissal of the actor Noel Clarke\u2019s case against the Guardian is about more than one actor\u2019s failed libel claim. Mrs Justice Steyn\u2019s judgment is about power and complicity as well as the failure to protect vulnerable people. In her verdict,\u00a0she\u00a0agreed with the Guardian that there were \u201cstrong grounds to believe that [Clarke] is a serial abuser of women\u201d.<\/p>\n The court heard testimony from 26 witnesses before concluding that Clarke had engaged in harassment, bullying and abuse of power over many years. The judge accepted some of his evidence, but found him to be neither credible or reliable. The Guardian\u2019s journalists, by contrast, were meticulous and gave Clarke reasonable opportunity to respond as well as fairly presenting his denials. Without women speaking up, Clarke would never have been exposed.<\/p>\n The judge rightly agreed that these were plainly matters of public interest. But in law it is not enough for an editor to say that a story is important. It must also demonstrate responsible journalism: it must have careful corroboration and fair presentation, and not be given to sensationalism. The editors and reporters produced\u00a0a\u00a0final article, the judge agreed, that was measured, accurate and balanced. Crucially, their belief that this work was in the public interest was\u00a0\u201creasonable\u201d.<\/p>\n Beyond the law is a wider, all too familiar story. Clarke was not just another actor; he was being honoured by the British film academy, Bafta, for his \u201coutstanding British contribution to cinema\u201d even as serious allegations began to circulate. But the deeper indictment is of an industry that turned a blind eye. Clarke was rewarded and celebrated while women who spoke out risked their careers. The structures of power that enabled him \u2013 and the colleagues willing to look away \u2013 are the same factors that have ended up sheltering abusers\u00a0across\u00a0society.<\/p>\n This is the culture that allowed him to flourish. It is the culture that required #MeToo before voices were heard, and that now faces a backlash in which powerful men are recast as victims. In Britain, a star celebrated by his peers has been exposed as a serial abuser only after years of whispers were ignored. In her summing up, Mrs Justice Steyn punctured Clarke\u2019s line of defence in a passage that was both subtle and resonant. These were, she reasoned, deliberate acts of abuse, later rationalised through minimisation and self-deception.<\/p>\n The lesson of this case is twofold. First, it is a victory for investigative journalism. When reporters act responsibly, the courts will uphold their right to publish. The Clarke case and allegations on shows such as MasterChef have sparked reforms, prompting a BBC culture review and the creation of an independent industry standards body. The second part of the lesson is that awards, plaudits and silence sustain harassers and abusers more effectively than any legal defence.<\/p>\n Clarke\u2019s reputation lies in ruins, not because of gossip, but because of findings tested in court. For years, Britain\u2019s TV industry tolerated a toxic culture where the misconduct of powerful men was seen as unmentionable and staff were resigned to silence. The industry\u2019s power imbalance \u2013 dominant executives and stars versus insecure freelancers, a situation worsened by shrinking production budgets \u2013 is widely blamed. The story here is not just about one man\u2019s downfall. It is about a culture that looked away \u2013 until it could no longer deny the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The high court\u2019s dismissal of the actor Noel Clarke\u2019s case against the Guardian is about more than one actor\u2019s failed libel claim. Mrs Justice Steyn\u2019s judgment is about power and complicity as well as the failure to protect vulnerable people. In her verdict,\u00a0she\u00a0agreed with the Guardian that there were \u201cstrong grounds to believe that [Clarke]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5396,10369,6700,1516,1510,1545,10370,10368,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-17239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-accountability","9":"tag-clarke","10":"tag-complicit","11":"tag-editorial","12":"tag-guardian","13":"tag-industry","14":"tag-journalism","15":"tag-noel","16":"tag-view"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}