On September 23, 2025, the long-running legal battle between actor Noel Clarke and the publisher of The Guardian reached a decisive and costly conclusion in London’s High Court. Mrs Justice Steyn ordered Clarke to pay at least £3 million toward the newspaper’s legal costs after what she described as a “far-fetched” and “false” case against its reporting of sexual misconduct allegations. The interim payment is just the beginning—The Guardian’s total legal bill is expected to exceed £6 million, underscoring the extraordinary scale and complexity of the litigation.
The roots of this courtroom drama trace back to April 2021, when The Guardian published an extensive investigation. The article reported that 20 women who had worked with Clarke professionally came forward with allegations of harassment and sexually inappropriate behavior. The coverage, which included seven articles and a podcast, sent shockwaves through the British entertainment industry and ignited a public reckoning over workplace conduct in film and television.
Clarke, best known for his roles in Doctor Who and as the writer-producer of the Kidulthood trilogy, vehemently denied all allegations. He launched a libel suit against Guardian News & Media (GNM), accusing the publisher of acting as “judge, jury and executioner” of his career. Clarke’s legal team initially sought £10 million in damages, which ballooned to £40 million and then £70 million as the case progressed, according to court records cited by The Guardian.
However, the court’s judgment, handed down last month, sided squarely with the newspaper. Mrs Justice Steyn concluded that GNM had succeeded in both its core defenses: that the reporting was true and that it was in the public interest. In her written ruling, she described Clarke as “not a credible or reliable witness,” observing a “general pattern of only being prepared to admit that which was established by documentary evidence.”
The judge’s language was unflinching. She said, “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.” She further noted that Clarke’s conduct during the trial—including accusations that witnesses and journalists had lied, perverted the course of justice, or conspired against him—had “inevitably massively increased the scale and costs of the litigation by giving rise to a whole new un-pleaded line of attack against witnesses and third parties.”
Gavin Millar KC, representing GNM, emphasized the burden that Clarke’s tactics had placed on the defense. He told the court that the publisher’s legal team had reviewed about 40,000 documents, including audio recordings and transcripts, and had to respond to a series of “misconceived applications” made by Clarke. Millar argued that the interim payment of £3 million was “significantly less” than the norm, which would typically be 75% to 80% of the total costs. “There is no good reason not to order a payment on account of GNM’s costs in this case,” he said in written submissions, as reported by The Guardian.
The judge agreed, stating, “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.” Clarke was given 28 days to make the payment.
Representing himself in court after his legal team resigned due to lack of funding, Clarke painted a picture of personal and financial devastation. In written submissions, he explained, “I have lost my work, my savings, my legal team, my ability to support my family and much of my health. My wife and children live every day under the shadow of uncertainty. We remortgaged our home just to survive.” He pleaded for the court to consider “both the law and the human reality of these proceedings” when determining the costs order, describing the sum as “excessive,” “inflated,” and “caused by their own choices.”
Clarke also asked the court to hold off on enforcing the payment pending an appeal, but Mrs Justice Steyn was unmoved. She noted that Clarke had already been granted an extension to apply for permission to appeal and concluded it would not be appropriate to delay the order further. She was clear that a party’s ability to pay only becomes relevant at the enforcement stage—not when setting the amount of costs.
During the hearing, Clarke revealed he had turned to ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool, to help prepare his response to GNM’s legal arguments. “I have not been vexatious and I have not tried to play games with the court,” he insisted, according to court transcripts. Yet the judge’s findings painted a different picture. Steyn found Clarke’s case to be not only lacking in credibility but also responsible for inflating the costs through unfounded conspiracy allegations and attacks on the integrity of journalists and witnesses.
Among those targeted by Clarke’s accusations were The Guardian’s head of investigations, Paul Lewis, and the reporters who broke the original story, Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne. The judge said Clarke had made “wholly unfounded allegations of dishonesty” against all three, as well as against several witnesses. She cited instances where Clarke accused one witness of fabricating multiple rape allegations and another of falsifying a Snapchat screenshot—claims she determined were “untrue and baseless.”
Legal experts note that interim cost orders of this magnitude are rare, but not unprecedented in complex, high-profile libel cases. The case has also reignited debate over the financial and emotional toll of legal battles involving public figures and media organizations, especially when the stakes include both personal reputations and journalistic freedom.
For Clarke, the consequences are not just monetary. He told the court, “Any costs or interim payments must be proportionate to my means as a single household, not the unlimited resources of a major media conglomerate. A crushing order would not just punish me, it would punish my children and wife, and they do not deserve that.” But the court’s focus remained on the conduct of the litigation and the principle that those who lose—and whose actions have driven up costs—must bear the consequences.
With the court’s decision, Clarke faces a daunting financial future and the likely end of his efforts to clear his name through the courts. For The Guardian, the ruling stands as a vindication of its reporting and a reaffirmation of the importance of investigative journalism in the public interest.
The case, with its dramatic twists and hefty price tag, serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of pursuing libel claims against robust journalism—especially when the facts, as determined by the court, are not on one’s side.
