It’s time we see Noel Clark’s work on TV and Streaming Services everywhere.
Noel has been an actor for over 20 years. He built up a career which later included writing directing and production.
He co-owned a production company called Unstoppable and this was funded by All3 Media Over the years He starred in many TV Series and films. A look at his IMDB will enlighten you on the breadth and depth of this talented entertainer.
Noel Admits, people did not know him. They just saw him on their screens – He was not a socialiser. He didn’t go to parties, doesn’t smoke, take drugs or drink. He was 24/7 either on a set, or at a production location or at home with his wife and several children with that one wife. There has never been any scandal about him sleeping around that we know of.
His films may be violent and show nudity because that is what he knows. He grew up on the streets in Ladbroke Grove. He knew murderers, drug pushers and thieves. He made a choice to not go that way. He didn’t know many ambitious people back then, who did well for themselves but this is what he aspired to do – and he made it.
It has been stated that he never had any complaints about any conduct. until the Career BAFTA was announced. When he was given that BAFTA. He was happy that all his hard work was being awarded
But 2 weeks after the award was given, all hell broke loose. Within 24 hours he lost all his contracts, pending work in film and TV and book deals. His company was taken from him and he was outsted from it. There seems to have been a coordinated campaign to discredit him. It was said that all these women had made accusations, and police were involved and it seemed that we were set to have a trial in the UK like we had never seen before. Except that didn’t happen.
It was later revealed that police did not look at anything due to lack of evidence, only to then be proved by Noel by The freedom of information act that in fact there were no reports actually made to the police AT ALL and suddenly all the accusers seem to have disappeared.
And with no real evidence in the article for those who have read it. What exactly did this Black man do except be black.
I’m a woman. I’m a believer of women that are real victims and their brave want for justice, but nobody wanted justice here or this man would have been in court. It is my belief that the accusations are false. Or at the very least exaggerated to the point of story telling. We know people in the industry. Ask around and you’ll hear the whispers are already out there, in quiet rooms and on sets of people I know. For every person saying friend knows a friend who knows a woman. There are 30 people saying they know it was bullshit, others behave worse and Noel was a scape goat. A target due to his success.
I’ve been told first hand, There were people who had an axe to grind or women who barely knew him that had an accusation about bullying or sexual harassment to add because they were told there was more coming and it was a chance to be seen, heard, be a hero. What would happen if we really looked into these women, or their husbands and boyfriends. What would we find?
As Helena bonham carter said as recently as last week.
“That’s the problem with these things — that people will jump on the bandwagon because it’s the trend and to be the poster girl for it.“
There hasn’t been more accusations, and 22 months later Noel is still in Limbo. Johnny Depp was accused of horrendous things. Noel Clarkes things seemed to be quite minor in compassion – but were bunched up to add the numbers. One person seemed to corroborate most of the allegations and it seemed like collusion of the highest order
Many are made by anonymous people that would not stand up in court to accuse him for they know there is no evidence. As mentioned above other half-baked stories were embellished to the point of fiction. Named people in the article we’ve been told have an axe to grind – and most knew each other which gives cohesive narrative. None felt so damaged that they want him locked up or even to reported him. They had nothing to tell the police. Or even any of his employers over 20 years as they all stated they had never heard anything like this about Clarke. So what’s really going on? Did they only want to destroy this man?
The Police, knowing how they are viewed themselves must have combed through the article trying to find evidence. They found nothing.
Noel used the Freedom of information act to find out if any person throughout his life had ever made any complaint about him. Nothing was found. You know they would be after a famous black man with relish to set an example to make themselves look better. We’ve seen it time and time again. In Spring of 2022, it was said that the police announced that Noel had no case to answer. Not one. Sadly the damage was already done. People have assumed guilt and broadcasters have yanked his programmes and films and have refused to work with him. BAFTA who were quick to tuun on him and condemn him only weeks after giving him and award. Co-stars who have been publicly known to have done worse disassociated themselves in hours and now we sit here, with nothing but rumours, what was that all for?
Being exonerated by the police is huge. It is even huger when you find out that actually even this was a media lie and Noel was never even reported. (we have seen evidence of this from a source)
We should be celebrating this. But instead there is silence and still a presumed guilt with ” no smoke without fire” thoughts pervading the land. Let he who is without sin – cast the first stone. Who among us is perfect? Has never done a thing wrong in their life? We need to stand up for what is right, and speak up for those whose power has been rudely snatched away to the detriment of the entertainment world
Looking at his social media It is my opinion that Noel is traumatised by the experience. He would feel that any woman can say anything about him and be believed. As a successful black man in his field, people were looking to bring him down and some of his closest friends or associates who were waiting for their moment did not stand by him. They knew different but were scared and trying to cover their own backs.
It’s time for a ground swell of support it’s time to release this man from purgatory. It’s time we show him that we cared, that what he did for the culture was important, and we should not be denied a body of his amazing work on the TV or streaming services or cinema. Noel is the British Spike Lee. We need to stop denying his talent over rumours that have been unproven when white actors accused of multiple rapes can still get work.
He may have been shameless flirt at one point I don’t know, but if he was then he is with 50 per cent of men in this country. But will we deny all these men a job, or take away their livelihood. We we take them all to court and find them guilty. There are not enough jail spaces. Banter is not a crime.
I myself read the article after being stunned by the news report. Not because of any presumed guilt, but because the accusations were trivial. It is a shocking piece of journalism full of hear-say and no evidence. Even the story about the video of an audition. Has a female casting director who was in the room who says it never happened, but they promote the voices of someone who was not even in the room and someone who has worked with Noel Clarke for years after the fact with no issue. And where are all the people that have seen this video… Please tell me if you know anyone bar a woman that has a grudge that’s seen it. Email in and tell me. Have you seen It? Has anyone produced this video?
This accusation article should not have got the attention it generated. It should not have been published. The Guardian should have known better. Even the most surprising stories can be proved as unsubstantiated. And half the people out there throwing mud at Noel have not read the piece and were not there when any of these supposed things happened.
At least two writers have examined the article and investigated further. They have found nothing incriminating. Nada. We’ve been told by our source that The mail on Sunday spent 7 months investigating and wrote an article for Noel on that basis, calling the original article into question, bit it was published behind a paywall of the mail newspaper – mail plus. The other article was written by a Dr Who fan – John the White has largely been ignored.
So why were these findings not published on the front pages and made a subject of interviews around the country. The bad news was plastered on the front pages for weeks, but the defence is hidden, and no apologies are forthcoming. If this was you, would you think life is not fair?
There was no rape or sexual assault included in the accusations. In no shape or form can he be described as a predator. This is not a Harvey Weinstein situation. Far from it. It is a miscarriage of justice from trolls.
There are haters and trolls out there on social media. Thousands of them with loud voices. But the silent majority need to speak up for this Noel Clarke.
He is accused of bullying, for trying to discipline staff. Bullying apparently is the new murder. Even in many work places, managers are scared to tell staff what to do for fear of being called a bully. They fear a grievance complaint being sent to the HR department. Just see what they have done to Meghan Markle. Noel was called bully for telling a girl off for being late. She was late… This is a survivor? A victim? Real victims must be turning in their graves?
So broadcasters, Sky, ITV, BBC and others need to stop with the prejudice and reinstate Noel immediately. He should be given his shows back, His company back
BAFTA needs to give him back his award and membership. His unique talent needs to be on show. He is a trailblazer who was stopped because people thought he was getting too big and stepping out of line. Noel was the one playing his own songs and the overseers did not like it so hung him on the hill
It’s our opinion that The writer of that Guardian article is a dangerous woman who apparently then got an award for the hit piece she wrote. I wonder how she feels knowing she ruined a man’s life to the point where he considered committing suicide for now seems like mostly hot air. It’s a tragedy which should have consequences for the Guardian and the writer, and if everything they said is real they should be forced to prove it.
My view is that Noel just needs to get back to his creative Genius. After all Elton John took £3 million to sue the Sun newspaper and won, but he only won the sum of £300k and no legal fee reimbursement. Elton John has deep pockets.
We all just need to move past this horrible 18 month tragedy and let the man and his family live and thrive.
In his time out, we can see from his social media on Twitter and Instagram that Noel has been writing and creating new work. We pray that we all get a chance to see these on our screens.
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We are not being paid or bribed for speaking up for Noel Clarke. But we realise an awful pattern is developing which is making men scared to reach the top. Especially Black men. It just takes one or more women to say – he touched my knee for their world to come tumbling down.
The accusing woman doesn’t need any evidence. Just throwing out the accusation is enough. It’s horrible and we can guarantee there are millions of men out there who have a fear of something coming out about them. Even if it’s a blatant lie or half-truth the damage can be catastrophic. Where does this end?
So for those who say Noel apologised. Yea – he apologised for any for misunderstandings from comments or jokes that offended people, possibly for what he thought was harmless flirting. These are not capital offenses.
With showings of his work so centralised through the TV channels, the world is being denied Noel’s work. It is not like the older days where his supporters could go and buy a DVD of his films. But maybe this will change soon.
A message to Noel Clarke –
- Make programmes and films. There are people out there willing to work with you for free until you get back your funders or get paid.
- Create your own channel online. YouTube pays well – I hear. See the top paying YouTube creators list.
- Write a book of your life and other books including one for teens.
- Create theatre plays. It did a world of good for Andrew Lloyd Webber, and this is how Tyler Perry started by putting on plays in various locations.
- Create your own academy to teach others how to get into the film industry. Let’s create another 100 Noels male and female (and other). Noel Clarke’s legacy must grow and live on.
- Get a face to face appointment with all these TV and Streaming executives who are blocking his programmes. Speak to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Channel 4 and everyone else who will listen. Speak your truth and get those doors opened again.
People who believe in Noel Clarke need to fund / invest in his talent. There is definitely an audience out there for him. And if these people don’t appreciate you, find people that will.
D. S. Grant
Blackeconomics.co.uk
2 December 2022
Read the following article from an objective person (not created by one of Noel’s friends.)
Sadly John the White died 24th August 2024. But his article and reasoned defence of Noel Clark lives on, and I reproduce it again below.
Can there be Justice for Noel Clarke?
Can there be Justice for Noel Clarke?
An investigation by John White.
#JusticeForNoelClarke
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PLEASE NOTE: All links are at the end of the article and correspond to bracketed (numbers) in text. JPEGS and other supporting information will be released on Social Media accounts where the article is linked in the near future. If you support #JusticeForNoelClarke please like and share on these platforms. Thankyou.
Please follow and click the bell for the #JusticeForNoelClarke Twitter account @JusticeForNoelC, https://twitter.com/JusticeForNoelC, thankyou.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnTheWhite1/status/1560134586612473856
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChY5fL9DRxT/?hl=en
The more we show the strength of our support, the better.
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UPDATE: Just before this article’s release, Noel Clarke put out a dramatic tweet just after 9pm on Monday 16th August 2022 https://twitter.com/NoelClarke/status/1559633416634748929
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In this 90 second video Noel Clarke makes clear he asserted his “right of access” under the Freedom of Information Act and has categoric proof NO COMPLAINTS were ever made about him to Police, by ANYONE. He further states he has had this verified by four Detectives. In this investigation, I have already discovered no more than five people went to Police, one of them a man, but based on Clarke’s statement, NONE of his accusers ever took their stories to the law. More questions must be asked!
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Can there be Justice for Noel Clarke?
This article is the result of several weeks of investigation, which I’ve undertaken because I’ve just not seen this question being asked in wider society. I’ve been looking deeply into all the circumstance that led to Noel Clarke being accused of being a “sexual predator” by the Guardian newspaper in their article of April 29th 2021 (1), and what I’ve found is a very complex story, where nothing seems to be quite what it appears.
Before I get into what I’ve discovered, I’d like to establish how I got involved in looking into this. I will always support those seeking justice, and I believe accusers need and deserve to be believed so their stories are taken seriously and properly investigated. What I don’t believe is that when accusations don’t lead to prosecutions, especially when covered by national news stories, career cancellation, and months of investigation, is that someone effectively cleared of suspicion of crime doesn’t deserve to get their life back.
When I read those Guardian accusations last year, they were deeply shocking. Like many people, upon hearing so many women had come forward to speak to the Guardian (they claim 20, although subsequently its clear this number isn’t properly evidenced in the reporting), it was hard not to believe there must be at least something in it, and as it was already a major news story and the Guardian was emphatic the women would be going to Police, it seemed the best thing to do was be patient and wait for the inevitable investigation.
That was it for a while. Noel Clarke’s name was mud, his career was wrecked, his lifetime Bafta was stripped from him for being under suspicion, his TV shows cancelled, his production company shut down, all within the space of 24 hours, and now it was a matter of time, for wheels to turn and authorities to do their jobs.
Then, on the 28th of March 2022, it was reported that Police had dropped the investigation, citing a lack of evidence (2).
Well, what to make of this? We have rule of law in our society, and innocent until proven guilty: while trial by media had already done huge damage to Noel Clarke’s life, if the Police saw nothing to answer for in these accusations, they obviously weren’t going to be tested in court, and Clarke was going to have to get on with his life.
It’s what I didn’t see over the next four months that surprised me. Noel Clarke had one article in the Daily Mail at the end of May, talking about the impact the accusations have had on him, including driving him to the edge of suicide (3), but there didn’t seem to be any push-back from the Guardian, and the women who had accused him seemed to be silent. They certainly weren’t complaining the Police hadn’t done their job or anything like that, which people might have expected. The outrage of aggrieved and let-down “victims” was strangely absent.
Then on July 11th this year something happened that made me determined to dig deeper into this, and find out just what’s been going on. The actress Sophia Myles was holding a Twitter “spaces” livestream, when she was challenged during the stream because Noel Clarke was spotted in its audience. “Why are you platforming a sexual predator Sophia!?” some people started to scream, and it got unpleasant. Sophia responded to this with a short statement that also ended up reported in the national press:
“I know wholeheartedly, Noel Clarke is not a sexual predator. He’s not but that’s my opinion, you know, and if you want to base your ideas off an article you’ve read in a newspaper then feel free.” (4)
This impacted me in another, more personal, context, because I am a fan of the TV series Doctor Who, which of course both Noel Clarke and Sophia Myles have appeared in, including together in the award winning episode “The Girl in the Fireplace”. As such, talent who have appeared on the show are part of a big ecosystem of conventions, and Noel Clarke had also been cancelled from that world because of the Guardian’s accusations. When was he going to be able to get at least that part of his life back? Indeed, the people trolling Sophia Myles’s livestream were also fans of Doctor Who, and I took quite a few to task on social media that day for not upholding the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and not respecting the Police decision that there was nothing to answer for in a court of law.
But how could there be justice for Noel Clarke? Denied a trial, admittedly for the positive reason the Police didn’t see a case to answer for, he was also denied the most visible and undeniable route to clear his public name: instead he was thrust into this kind of limbo, where he isn’t guilty but he’s not exactly “innocent” either. Mud sticks, and Clarke had been submerged under a metric tonne of it.
None of this sat well with me. How could it be that 20 women can go to a newspaper, instigate a national scandal with their accusations, trash Noel Clarke’s life’s work, but when their claims don’t amount to crimes in the eyes of the law, Clarke is left hanging, and they are not being challenged and questioned about what they said, and whether it really stacked up? Beyond the one feature about Noel Clarke in the Daily Mail, there was little sign of this necessary scrutiny coming from the press.
So, I decided, I was going to have to dig into all this myself, because someone has to do it, and my sense of Justice wouldn’t let this lie.
What follows is the result of weeks of personal investigation. And I have dug deep!
The aims of my investigation
Setting out goals for what I wanted to try and find out, the most important question of all is
“Why did the Police decide not to prosecute Noel Clarke?”
Everything hinges on understanding that if we are to be able to say if Noel Clarke will ever be able to get his life back, or will forever be convicted in the court of public opinion, instead of a court of law.
On that basis I decided to:
- Deconstruct the original Guardian article to determine exactly what is claimed, by who, and whether on the face of what was printed the claims were as strong as the public assumed them to be.
- As part of that, investigate those making the claims, to see if anything there might explain why Police felt this would not stand up in court.
- To look wider into other articles that have come out in the time since and whether there is information in them, or in the tone the articles are framed in, that might also explain why these allegations have come to nothing.
- To ask wider questions that come about as a result of the above, including possible motives for a group of people to come together to make accusations about Noel Clarke, that haven’t stood up in the eyes of the Law over a longer time frame.
The beginning: deconstructing the Guardian article.
The Guardian article is a complicated piece of writing. It needs to be read very carefully to pick through some of the fancy journalistic footwork the Guardians lawyers no doubt had a lot of input into. On the face of it “20 women accuse Noel Clarke” is a devastating headline, and many people don’t really get deeper into stories than the headline. But even on initial reading: is that really substantiated?
What we actually have in the Guardian’s claims is three categories of accusation: direct accusation by women using their legal name, accusation by anonymised women, and accusations mentioned but never evidenced at all. All three are required to arrive at “20 accusers”.
The direct accusers are:
Gina Powell
Jahannah James
Phillipa Crabb
Anna Avramenko
Jing Lusi
Synne Seltveit
Leva Sabaliauskaite
Helen Atherton
The anonymised accusers are:
“Meghan”
“Leila”
“Mel”
“Chantel”
“Kim”
“Becky”
Which is 8 named women, 6 anonymised women, making 14, which leaves a further 6 accusers who are never named and whose stories are not told in the Guardian article. So why was the Guardian article not titled “14 women make accusations against Noel Clarke” when only 14 women were referenced in the story? It’s effectively the journalists saying “trust me bro!”
Which is why it’s also important to look at the journalists who wrote the article, Sirin Kale & Lucy Osbourne.
Finally, investigation also identified a number of people who either made statements on social media at the time, or who have subsequently been identified as being part of events, or who have previously had issues with Noel Clarke, all of which have some relevance to this story:
These are:
Adam Deacon
Davie Fairbanks
James Krishna Floyd
Chrissie Chong
Mandeep Dhillon
Rosie Day
These are all people I have dug into as part of my investigation.
Putting all these pieces together, I believe creates solid incentive to question the Guardian articles credibility and its motives. To achieve this, I have what’s been printed in the press, article links, production history from the times these people have interacted with Noel Clarke, and social media screenshots, that combine to raise significant doubts over this whole affair.
Logically, we can only start at the beginning, so I’m going to begin by running through all the named women, and then the anonymised women, featured in the Guardian’s article, and other articles that followed, raising legitimate questions that arise along the way, then look at the journalists, then other people connected to this story, and make conclusions at the end of that process.
The Direct accusers
Gina Powell
Powell is the former producer for Noel Clarke, who worked for him from September 2014 through to March 2017. She was mainly involved with the production of the film “Brotherhood”, the third film in Clarke’s “hood” trilogy.
She claimed Clarke continually harassed her, would brag about photo and video material held on a hard drive, and had “naked audition” footage featuring another accuser, Jahannah James. Powell claims she told James about this alleged footage in 2017, apparently taken four years previously during an audition for the film “Legacy”, which Powell herself has an “assistant producer” credit on. The Guardian also claims to have spoken to two other women who witnessed this 2017 conversation between Powell and James.
Powell further claims Clarke exposed himself in a car to her, and groped her in a lift while in Los Angeles in 2015, that she witnessed accuser Phillipa Crabb being shouted at in a car, and was also part of events involving the accusations of Synne Seltveit.
On the face of the above, Powell is very much the primary accuser against Clarke. She seems to be the “glue” holding the whole group of women together, and the Guardian’s information makes clear she has been speaking against Clarke to a small group of insiders for the last five years. Which is exactly the time frame since she lost her job working for Noel Clarke.
It also makes clear that there are claims of a money dispute between Powell and Noel Clarke’s production company “Unstoppable” that marred her exit from the company in March 2017. This alone could be a major reason Police did not consider her accusations credible evidence of a crime.
Where is this “naked audition” video? The Guardian gives no indication it has seen it, Jahannah James knew nothing about it until four years after it apparently happened, there is nothing to suggest Powell has a copy of it, so therefore neither has Jahannah James actually seen it, and also in the Guardian article the casting director in the room at the time denies it ever happened.
Furthermore, if we take Powell at face value, when did she know about it? When did she see it (If ever!)? Safe to conclude she would have to have known at some point when she was involved in producing “Legacy”, but Powell was quite happy to keep quiet about it: until she no longer had a job and was claiming Noel Clarke owed her money. Doesn’t seem like Jahannah James was really at the top of Powell’s priority list.
It would appear that the Guardian made an error in a follow up article some months later (13) and inadvertently let slip the identity of one of the other people present in the room at the time, and identified them as one of the only five people who actually went to police, and also revealed a surprising fact about them, which further raises questions about motive behind these claims: I will come back to this point later.
With the exception of Powell acting as a witness for Phillipa Crabbe’s claim of being shouted at, everything else Powell alleges in the article is about times she was apparently alone with Clarke, so falls into the “he said she said” category. Powell also expects us to believe that despite Clarke allegedly exposing himself to her in 2015, she carried on working for him for a further two years, and when she did bring a complaint, it was about money, not any alleged bad behaviour towards her.
Did Police conclude Powell was too compromised by the animosity regarding her exit from Clarke’s company to make a credible witness? Coupled with a video which hasn’t been shown to exist, her claims are not as strong as they first appear.
Noel Clarke has denied in the strongest terms both Powell’s accusations of bullying, and having ever shared covert explicit images.
Jahannah James
Jahannah James is an actor who appeared in numerous projects with Noel Clarke. James’s main place in this story is as the alleged victim of the “naked audition” tape that there is nothing to suggest she actually knows exists beyond what Powell told her in 2017. She certainly used to have a very positive relationship with both Noel Clarke and his business partner Jason Maza, and the Guardian cites that Clarke was supportive towards her at the start of her career.
James was also involved in an article that appeared in the Daily Mail on May 2nd 2021 (5). This cited a Tweet from James made on May 1st 2021, that stated Police had already told her they would take no action against Clarke unless he threatened James with the alleged “Naked audition” video, which again there is no conclusive evidence actually exists beyond Gina Powell’s say-so. This makes sense! Police don’t prosecute on thin air.
This article further discussed a sketch James did with Noel Clarke and Jason Maza for the show “Greatest ever celebrity wind ups” that appeared in episode 5, season 2, of that series for Channel 5. (6)
In this sketch, Maza pretends to have an allergic reaction, and James is told to pee on him by Clarke as the only way to stop his allergic attack. Much hilarity ensues.
The problem is, this sketch, which was scripted and agreed by all beforehand, like everything on that show, is not “real life” footage, but a performance by actors, and the Daily Mail article thoroughly mis-represents this for the sake of that day’s clicks. The notion it constitutes any kind of “abuse” is laughable and typical Daily Mail hackery.
However, in fairness the Daily Mail may have been slightly confused, as the sketch was used in the promotion for Brotherhood, so perhaps out of the context of being in a sketch show some people could have mistaken that for real: however, it certainly was not, and that article as such is mischief that should be dismissed.
Phillipa Crabb
Crabb worked as a production runner on Brotherhood in 2015. As well as general bullying behaviour, one instance of which is claimed to be witnessed by Gina Powell, she alleges that Clarke demanded sexual favours from her in return for a part in the film.
This claim is hard to assess, firmly in the “he said she said” category for the most part, but one thing that does seem illogical is that if Noel Clarke demanded favours for parts, but as Crabb says, she wasn’t having any of it: why then did she still get the part? Crabb is still in the Movie!
The point of the toxic “casting couch” culture characterised by Harvey Weinstein is surely that if you don’t get on the couch, you don’t get the job? It would seem Crabb at least partly debunks her own credibility by telling a story that doesn’t on the face of it make sense.
Anna Avramenko
Avramenko was an intern on the production of “Doghouse” in 2008. She alleges Clarke repeatedly tried to kiss her in front of the whole crew. So why is it, with an entire crew of people for the Guardian to reach out to for comment, not a single supporting voice could be found, for what would have been very public behaviour? She is the only accuser who seems to state Clarke did anything like that in view of others, and yet no others have come forward to support what she claims.
Jing Lusi
Lusi is an Actor who worked with Clarke on “SAS Red Notice”. She claims she had dinner with Clarke on 27th November 2018, where Clarke was in a rush to finish the meal and very clumsily and arrogantly propositioned her. She says she declined, Clarke urged her to keep quiet about it, and the next day sent her a “shushed lips” emoji.
If Clarke did proposition her as a married man, that is obviously distasteful, but not criminal, and the claims of an emoji sent by phone are hard to assess without the full context of that conversation.
Lusi also recounts how she tried to pressure Noel Clarke’s PR person, Emily Hargreaves, into taking action, presumably by dropping Clarke as a client. Hargreaves response was she did not recall that conversation and didn’t meet with Lusi.
Synne Seltveit
Seltveit is a film producer who the Guardian introduces as “friends with (Gina) Powell from film school”. She claims she met Clarke in July 2015, and shortly after she and Powell accepted an invite from Noel Clarke and “a friend” to attend a UFC mixed martial arts fight in Glasgow, with VIP tickets, and that at an afterparty Clarke “slapped her buttocks”.
She further claims that in the week following this trip, she got an email from Clarke asking if she had checked her snapchat, and on it she found a picture of a penis sent by Clarke.
The inference drawn by many people will be that this alleged picture was a picture of Clarke’s own manhood. However, the Guardian’s language is very careful here, and in fact it never states this alleged picture is any such thing. It merely says it was an image of “a” penis, labelled as sent by Clarke.
Noel Clarke denies slapping her buttocks, and that its “highly unlikely” he would have sent such a picture. The alleged image itself has never been shown, although in another article in GQ magazine about their investigation, Guardian journalist Sirin Kale claims she showed the image to a teenager in “order to confirm that’s what snap chat looked like back in 2015” (7). I will be discussing this article in more detail later.
Even if it was true Clarke did send such a picture to Seltveit, the wider context of that conversation may shed more light on whether it was some kind of proposition, or a prank taken the wrong way.
It also raises the question, if Noel Clarke is such a bad man for allegedly having such images on his phone: doesn’t the same apply to Seltveit saving such a picture for 6 years? It leaves the question in the back of my mind, could any of Noel Clarke’s accusers credibility survive being able to look through their phones, emails and other privileged information? Certainly, if any of the complainants had ever taken part in egging that kind of behaviour on, and being part of it themselves, or had otherwise colluded together on their respective claims, and that knowledge became public, the consensus view of whether Noel Clarke is a horrible abuser, or a victim of cancel culture, would shift very quickly.
Leva Sabaliauskaite
Sabaliauskaite was a production runner on Brotherhood. At the wrap party on December 21st 2015, she was “on the dancefloor, showing colleagues her abilities as a former gymnast, including doing the splits.”
She claims the next day she walked into the office and Clarke and others were laughing about an image of her taken at that party, that it was an “upskirt” photo, that she grabbed for Noel Clarke’s phone in a panic, the phone smashed, and Clarke made her go and get that phone repaired, in order to “humiliate” her.
Noel Clarke responded by saying it was a photo of her doing the splits, not the “upskirt” image claimed, that it was taken coincidentally, and that he only joked about showing the picture around. Furthermore, Sabaliauskaite having to get the phone repaired was incidental, as that was simply her job as production runner.
Common sense says to me that Sabaliauskaite is hardly the first person to feel embarrassed about her behaviour at an office party, and certainly won’t be the last, and there is little here that could be considered conclusive of malice on Noel Clarke’s part.
Helen Atherton
Atherton is unique amongst all the direct accusers, as she is the only person Noel Clarke has put his hand up and apologised to for his behaviour, to whit “complimenting her backside” on more than one occasion. Noel Clarke said he was “embarrassed by such behaviour”. Reading between the lines, this apology was given back in the time Atherton was working for him, and the behaviour stopped, which Atherton doesn’t dispute.
The rest of Atherton’s claims are all vigorously denied, chiefly that Noel “violated industry standards” for filming nudity. The Guardian takes pains to describe the use of nudity in Clarke’s projects as “gratuitous”, but this is a subjective statement, who are the Guardian to decide how much nudity in art is or is not appropriate? Clearly none of the nudity in Noel Clarke’s projects broke broadcasting or censorship standards.
Atherton claims multiple people were on set for nude/sex scenes, that footage shot could not be used, and that some of the performers were sex workers not actors. Clarke’s response is that the set was closed, everything shot was scripted, with some leeway for “a degree of improvisation”, and that everyone involved was comfortable with the shooting session at the time.
While Noel Clarke didn’t directly address the question of “sex workers” on set, it occurs to me extras are hired through agencies. Why would the director be directly involved with that? They have far more important things to do getting the shots in the can, that is what making a film is all about. Surely that would be the responsibility of the producer and their staff, and even then, film extras have other lives to live, it’s a side job. Who would judge what that was, why would it be relevant? And who was the producer for Noel Clarke at the time? Oh! Gina Powell! That does seem very neat.
Another aspect of Atherton’s statements to the Guardian that stands out relates back to the claims of Powell and Seltveit, regarding images claimed to be on Noel’s phone: to quote the Guardian: “she recalls Clarke showing her naked photographs sent by women to his phone”. This places the claims of what might be on Noel Clarke’s phone in a different context, where he is being voluntarily sent images, not covertly collecting them himself as Powell infers, so in this Atherton partly undermines other claims being made, and their inferences as to Noel Clarke’s motive.
This completes summarising all the accusations made directly by people using their own legal name.
The anonymised accusers
Before discussing the anonymised accusers individually, it turns out, because of the information provided in the Guardian’s own article, two of these people are actually easy to identify. I thought long and hard on this, as to whether doing so was appropriate, but I concluded that anonymity is not a legal barrier imposed by a court, but simply a courtesy extended by the newspaper. If they provide enough information to actually allow two to be credibly identified, that’s on them, and a lack of journalistic competence to protect those identities, not on me. I have therefore decided I will reveal their identities in this article, as it speaks to their credibility. But first, I will run through all six accusations:
“Meghan”
“Meghan” is described by the Guardian as “a young female script supervisor” during the production of Brotherhood.
She claims Clarke would whisper “inappropriate things to her” and bullied her on set, including a blow up about continuity during the filming of a scene that made her look incompetent. She claimed Clarke’s behaviour caused her to have a panic attack, that an ambulance was called to check her over, and that named accuser Phillipa Crabb then drove her home. The Guardian further claims these incidents drove Meghan to leave the industry and not return.
Noel Clarke denies bullying anyone on the set of Brotherhood, and that while “Meghan” did have a panic attack on set, it was nothing to do with his actions.
“Leila”
“Leila” claims Noel Clarke came onto her in a store cupboard. There is little further detail about her claim. She also said she told her boyfriend about it, and the Guardian says they have spoken to him and he confirms that. However, this isn’t entirely clear, as the Guardian says it spoke to the boyfriend, that’s 2021, he recalls being told about it in 2018, but that doesn’t mean the incident is supposed to have happened in 2018: there is nothing in the claim to date it at all. So that boyfriend would seem like a second hand witness to a conversation possibly years after the supposed fact.
Noel Clarke says there is such little information in the allegation he can’t really respond to it other than denying he would do such a thing. Firmly in the “he said she said” category in any potential court action (which of course isn’t going to happen following Police conclusions about these claims)
“Mel”
“Mel” is described as an actor 10 years younger than Noel Clarke who featured in “Kidulthood” back in 2004. She claims Clarke kissed her with his tongue and would then grab her and try to kiss her on set. When it came to the sequel, “Adulthood”, filmed in 2007, “Mel” was uncomfortable with the script and declined to return to reprise her part, and that then Clarke threatened her career.
Noel Clarke denies all of the above.
“Chantel”
“Chantel” is described as a costumer on a project Noel Clarke both wrote and appeared in. She claims Clarke insisted on having his costume brought to his Hotel Room and made her watch him getting dressed in it. While doing so he made inappropriate comments that upset her, that she told her mother about it, and the Guardian says it spoke to her mother who confirmed her daughter had been upset.
Noel Clarke denies all the allegations and can’t recall ever getting dressed in his Hotel Room and insisting someone stayed.
“Kim”
“Kim” is described as an actor who worked with Clarke in 2018. She claims constant instances of inappropriate looking, kissing and touching, and that Clarke pressured her to do a sex scene they were both scripted to be in nude, instead of in bra and pants, which she would have been more comfortable in.
Noel Clarke denies all allegations of inappropriate behaviour, and says the actor did request a change in the scene, which they discussed, but he didn’t pressure her to do the scene a particular way, and it was shot as “Kim” wanted it.
“Becky”
“Becky” is described as a crew member on a film Clarke made in 2011. She claims that in 2011 Clarke pinned her against a dressing room wall and made a pass at her, but she laughed it off and “wriggled free”. Noel Clarke responded that there is so little information about this claim to go on that its impossible to respond to any detail about the allegation, other than deny such a thing happened.
Summarizing these accusations, at least two , “Leila” and “Becky”, are so weak that there is no chance they would ever be brought before a court: they are effectively just gossip filler padding the article. “Chantel” and “Kim” maybe a little more credible if they were able to produce witnesses willing to support their claims: but would have to do so. And as for “Meghan” and “Mel”… well, we are about to find out who they really are….
Revealing the anonymous
Because of the detail in the Guardian’s own reporting, and information readily available on sites like IMDB, both Meghan and Mel are easily identifiable:
“Meghan” is a woman called Lily Marriage, while “Mel” is the actor Jaime Winstone, daughter of the famous Ray Winstone. They are the only people who could possibly fit the Guardian’s description of them.
Lily Marriage
In the case of Lily Marriage, the Guardian explicitly claims “Megan didn’t return to the production, leaving an industry she loved to work in sales.”
But a glance at her IMDB profile clearly shows this was not true, and that she worked in the industry for a further year on the film “Deny Everything” and the short film “Behind the Restaurant” (8). This is entirely inconsistent with the Guardian’s characterisation of events, suggesting Noel Clarke made her flee a job she loved, nor is it clear if she was suffering from stress related anxiety on any of the projects she worked on in the two years before Brotherhood. Is it possible the film industry is a high stress environment she wasn’t really suited for? Have events, and a clear admitted cock-up with continuity, very much her work responsibility, been distorted through a “get Noel” lens, but don’t really reflect the reality?
Jaime Winstone
Why did Jaime Winstone not reprise her role in Adulthood? Could it be she was pursuing other opportunities? If her view of Noel Clarke was so poor, why did she appear with him in the short film “Robin Hood Tax” in 2010, along with Bill Nighy and Tom Felton? That film was for charity with no pay involved, and yet she chose to involve herself with Noel Clarke to make it.
Was the anonymity granted by the Guardian to protect her close relationship with Adam Deacon from scrutiny, a man so deranged about Noel Clarke he ended up sectioned under the mental health act in 2015 after being arrested making death threats against Noel’s family, and also threatening his neighbour while wielding a machete? Winstone may not have appeared in Adulthood, but she appeared in Deacon’s “Anuthahood” (a mickey-taking pastiche of Clarke’s successful movies, which seems to have been the point at which Clarke and Deacon’s relationship started to break down).
Adam Deacon is a major piece of this puzzle, and we will discuss him more in detail later on.
Summarizing the original Guardian article
Obviously, the Guardian’s reporting is a professional piece of work, but like many of these things, once it’s analysed beyond its initial abundance of claims, what is it actually proving? The one thing we can conclude is the article constituted a “third party report” made to the Police by the newspaper: but what can the Police make of it different than the general public?
If it seeks to prove Noel Clarke is a “sexual predator”, then he must be the least successful sexual predator to ever be part of the film industry, as not one of these women, anonymous or not, says they ever were pressured into sex by Clarke or had an affair with him or anything similar. Instead, it’s a churn of very similar claims of looking, touching, kissing, that certainly might constitute sexual harassment, and it would be wrong if it happened, but also look a lot like gossip, tattle tales, and distorted representation, that would never hold up in court without two sympathetic journalists putting it all together and papering over the cracks. Is it any wonder the Police found no basis to prosecute for anything, when the article is stepped back from and considered objectively? And do these women’s claims really amount to a solid reason for Noel Clarke not to get back to work and have, at the least, his BAFTA award restored to him?
Questions about what happened with BAFTA, and the panic accusations about Noel Clarke created within the organisation, are themselves so large I intend to deal with them in a separate article, but for now, let us consider the timing of all this, and whether getting that BAFTA award stripped from Noel Clarke was the main motive for these women to come forward and speak to the Guardian. As we will see from later statements made by the journalists involved in GQ magazine, cancelling Noel’s BAFTA was the main “win”, not obtaining justice through the law, for a bunch of claims that would likely fall apart under cross examination in court…
So, to consider that, lets now look at the journalists involved in writing the article, and things they may have let slip talking about that article since….
Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne
The Guardian describes Sirin Kale as “A guardian journalist” and Lucy Osborne as “A guardian journalist and film producer”
In fact, Kale has only been on the Guardian staff as a feature writer since June 2022. Before that she was freelance, and previously an associate editor on the staff of Vice magazine.
Osborne is a freelancer who has also had work appear in the Daily Mail, Sunday Times, and others, and is known for investigation into the “dark side of industries like modelling”.
To discuss the background into how these two ended up writing the article featuring the allegations against Noel Clarke, we can turn to their own words in the previously mentioned GQ article “Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne: ‘Some women genuinely believed their career would be destroyed’ published 6th November 2021 (7).
The by-line on that article is itself interesting:
“Investigative journalism is a dying art, you say? Not for Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne. By bringing to light a slew of sexual allegations against a Bafta winner, they pulled back the curtain on the dark side of the film industry and gave a voice to the previously silenced victims”
END QUOTE.
Note how, even though four months before the Police statement there was no investigation of the allegations active, there’s no mention of Justice for victims through the law in that by-line. Instead, it’s about a visceral response to Noel Clarke winning that Lifetime BAFTA award, and “voices to the previously silenced”.
Where in any of the reporting done by Kale and Osborne in the Guardian do they claim any of the women have been silenced? How? By whom? No discussion of any legal action being taken against any of them by Clarke, no mention of non-disclosure agreements, no evidence anyone was silenced at all. True, Noel Clarke’s business partner Jason Maza did try to persuade at least a few of the women not to take their stories to the Guardian, but no indication anyone listened to him. Given that, in another Guardian article we will discuss more later on, the Guardian admits it “understands” only 5 people actually went to the Police (9), and also lets slip one of them was a man, it would seem up to 16 women ultimately silenced themselves: and certainly confirmed they weren’t interested in justice through the legal system now they had achieved their objectives getting Noel Clarke cancelled by the press. That means not even every women cited under her legal name by the Guardian made a police report! Nor did any of them have any reason to fear for their careers. No sign of anyone getting “cancelled” for taking part in the article of April 29th 2021. I wonder how many of the people Maza tried to persuade not to do this are included in those who didn’t go to the Police. All of them?
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The GQ feature on Kale and Osborne starts off with the bizarre story claiming the only way these investigative journalists could “confirm” what snapchat looked like in 2015 was to show an alleged “dick pic” to a teenager in 2021. Why would someone probably in primary school six years before know what Snapchat was supposed to look like at the time? I only have to type “Snapchat 2015” into google for a simply fantastic number of hits, with lots of screen shots. This is investigative journalism? Especially since this “fact checking” of an Snapchat message never led to the publication of that image. How would knowing what Snapchat looked like 6 years before confirm or deny if such an image came from Noel Clarke’s Snapchat account? Surely the unique identity and date stamp would do that for them? But then, without that alleged image, Seltveit’s only place in the story is a claim Noel Clarke slapped her bum at that after party in Glasgow, which would be one of the weakest claims in the whole article, hardly worth putting her own name to.
The next thing that really stands out is the description of their investigation as “a sprint not a marathon”, and that they only had “three and a half weeks” to put the story together:
Why?
One might think that with a story like this getting every detail right mattered, instead the article describes a mad dash to get something in print by the end of that month. Why April 2021? Why couldn’t this have been released in May?
But then, three and a half weeks to publish on April 29th would be exactly a month since the announcement Noel Clarke would be awarded the lifetime achievement BAFTA award. Someone set that deadline, and its logical to conclude that had everything to do with hitting the news cycle before public awareness of that BAFTA award got too faded.
So here we have Kale and Osborne admitting two important things: the article was rushed, with an imposed deadline they had to make, and it connected to the BAFTA award and hitting the press in time to impact Noel Clarke’s career. While given lip service, the focus is not obtaining justice for historical abuse leading to prosecutions: which indeed, most of these women later showed themselves not bothered to go to the Police to try to obtain.
A second very important detail from this GQ article is shown in this quote:
“Just three days before Clarke, the creator of the Kidulthood film series, accepted the Bafta award for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema, Kale and Osborne received a phone call from Lewis. He wanted them to follow up on a tip that had come in via a Guardian feature editor who had once interviewed the source in the past.”
Firstly, this story was pitched to the Guardian just before Noel Clarke won that award. So awareness of that award, and the motive to pitch the story to the Guardian, is rationally concluded to be linked to that upcoming honour being paid to Noel Clarke.
Secondly, NONE of the named women in the Guardian have ever had a feature article in the paper. So, the primary source certainly wasn’t one of them, and the Guardian confirms that. Therefore, the primary sources identity is being hidden. But there is one person with real animus against Noel Clarke who has had such a Guardian feature: Adam Deacon. Does this feature article on Deacon from 2017 prove that he was the original tip-off to the Guardian? (10). We will talk more about Deacon later, and how choosing what to believe about his history of claims about Clarke necessitates choosing between two impossibly contradictory positions, only one of which can be true. Is it what he said in court when being convicted of making death threats against Clarke and his family, trying to get clemency from the Jury, or is it what he has repeatedly said on social media and in the press?
Another interesting quote from Osborne:
““In a previous story about sexual abuse in the modelling industry, it took me two years to get enough women to go on the record,” she says. “[In this case] there were just so many stories and it was pretty clear that this was something really important that needed to be looked into further.”
So, when Osborne was doing thorough investigative journalism, not under the guillotine of a hard deadline of only three and a half weeks, it took two years to find “enough” women to make an article worthwhile (why? Is one credible person coming forward not enough? It certainly has been with other stories about abusers in the press, look at Virginia Guthrie’s claims about Prince Andrew).
Yet in this instance, with an extremely tight deadline, and working so hard they claim they could barely manage the time to eat, Osborne and Kale managed to find enough women to pad their story out to 20 (even though six are never named even by pseudonym and their stories never actually told).
How did they manage that? Was that a minor miracle of Osborne and Kale just asking around and getting lucky? Or did people with an agenda motivated by Noel Clarke’s BAFTA award feed them other people with agendas, and thereby take both Osborne, Kale, and the Guardian itself, for a ride? Or were Osborne and Kale quite comfortable with that for the reward of a career boost being credited with the scoop? Not as if they had time to mess about…
When they published their story in April 2021, did Osborne and Kale know that only four of those women, at most, were actually going to make a Police report, or did they think they all would because they pinkie swear promised they would, and that was part of the Guardian’s decision to publish, effectively under false pretext?
The GQ article also mentions “The next few weeks were critical for collating as much evidence as possible, including texts, phone recordings, emails, videos and images, as well as first, second and third-hand allegations from victims, whistle-blowers and witnesses.”
Second hand, third hand, allegations? Anyone who fits in that category is neither a victim themselves or any kind of whistle-blower. At most they could be a witness to somebody else saying such a thing had happened, not speak to any direct knowledge of events.
Text, emails and images are easy enough to understand: but phone recordings? Made illicitly? Video? What video? The Guardian article makes no mention of seeing any video whatsoever: there is certainly no evidence Powell ever had a copy of the alleged “naked” video of Johanna James, nor that James ever saw such a video herself. So, the Guardian could hardly have seen it either, could they? If they had, the story would have been written very differently, there would be no doubt about that claimed video’s existence, and they could clearly and unambiguously say so, which would have been entirely to the articles benefit demolishing one of Noel Clarkes line of defence. They didn’t do that, because they couldn’t.
The article also tries to make as much as it can of Jason Maza phoning around trying to persuade people not to talk to the paper. Easy to put that in a negative light, “trying to cover it up silence victims etc”, except as we see, the majority of the women in the Guardian article effectively ended up silencing themselves by not making their allegations formal with the Law. Could it instead be that Maza was trying to persuade people not to take part in a badly motivated witch hunt? Noel Clarke’s lawyers make clear Maza was not acting under Clarke’s instructions but on his own recognisance, and the Guardian journalists don’t dispute this. Was Maza simply trying to protect his friend from allegations that were actually false?
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Kale makes another claim in the GQ article that also seems bizarre: “One thing that did come up quite a lot was [the accusers’] fears around race and the idea of speaking out publicly about a black man from a working-class background,”
END QUOTE.
They were afraid of Noel Clarkes “power” because he is black and from a council estate? This doesn’t exactly match with concepts of intersectional privilege. The Guardian is always seeming to condemn racism in society, surely being white and female is more privileged? Didn’t seem to be any barrier to the Guardian listening to them and working with them on a tight deadline to bring Noel Clarke down. Perhaps the truth is the reverse, and it was exactly Clarke’s skin colour and social background that made him more vulnerable, not less. In fact, could it be seen that its Clarke’s background that made him the WRONG person in the eyes of some to be the first person of colour to win a BAFTA lifetime achievement award? Friends like Sophia Myles have certainly indicated they feel racism and prejudice is a factor in how Clarke has been treated both by the industry and the press.
And yet, despite such concern about Noel Clarke’s skin colour and class background, Kale is keen to try to grab the privilege for her own investigation, opining that “most victims (sic) are women of colour”. This claim wrings false in an industry still dominated by white actors and we can see the majority of identified accusers are overwhelmingly white. If we were to believe Kale, we should believe that most of the women who don’t want to put their own names and reputation on the line taking part in her investigation must be women of colour, and she’s busily hidden that fact…
As Hannah Flint, the writer of the GQ article, says near the conclusion: “The hard work certainly paid off: Clarke’s career has been irreparably damaged, and the fallout has forced a reckoning within the UK film and TV industry to address the blind spots that breed toxic workplace behaviour.”
This confirms people got what they wanted out of it, both those who spoke to the Guardian because they wanted Clarke to be torn down (but not so much actually be prosecuted), and for vested interests within the industry wanting reform, who might benefit from the monitoring required as a result, and the finance needed to pay for it. Win/Win all round, and great for Osborne and Kale’s careers too: just a shame for Noel Clarke.
Perhaps the “right” person of colour to be allowed to win a BAFTA lifetime achievement award will come along later…
Other people involved in claims against Noel Clarke
As well as the women featured in the original guardian expose, and the journalists themselves, there are a number of other people my investigation has highlighted who have been involved in making claims against Noel Clarke. The first, and probably most significant of these, is Actor Adam Deacon.
Adam Deacon
Before getting into any details of Adam Deacons relationship with Noel Clarke, and how it turned incredibly toxic, I would first like to say that Deacon has clearly suffered very serious mental health problems, forcibly sectioned under the Mental Health Act at least once, and a voluntary patient multiple times. He also has clearly stated he comes from a background of a bad childhood, being targeted by adult violence. For both these reasons, as a human being, I have a degree of sympathy for him, as I would for anyone with those problems, especially as I also had a childhood punctuated by adult violence myself, and I learned how the damage of that came out as problems for me later on as an adult as my life unfolded. However, this sympathy, while I would like to note it, is no kind of excuse for how Deacon has behaved for many years. We are still responsible for what we do, especially when not directly in the grip of psychosis.
Adam Deacon and Noel Clarke appear to have begun their relationship when Noel’s first movie script, Kidulthood, went into production in the early 2000’s. There don’t seem to be any indications of problems between them, in fact they seemed to get on well, and this continued to be the case for the follow up Adulthood. But it was sometime around 2011, when Adam made his own project, a comedy pastiche of the films he had done with Clarke, Anuthahood, that the first sign of something going sour emerged. Something went wrong between them at this point, and it was to prove to have dramatic consequences four years later.
Anuthahood was released in March 2011 and seemed to be a moderate success. But in September that year, Deacon took to social media to start slamming Noel Clarke, accusing him of conspiring against him to wreck his career. No credible evidence of this has ever been produced. Was this just the first sign of a paranoid mind starting to spin out of control? Noel Clarke seems to have shown only restraint in response, despite the reality that it was Adam going out of his way in the public sphere to wreck Noel’s reputation, and damage Noel’s career, not the other way around. This also seems to fit with the classic psychological principle of projection, Adam taking failings in his own behaviour and projecting them onto Noel Clarke as a way of not confronting what was really going on in his own life and his own mind. Noel Clarke seems to have become the scapegoat for anything that didn’t go Adam’s way.
The next year, 2012, Adam Deacon won the public vote to be awarded “BAFTA Rising Star”, an award Clarke had also won in 2009. Adam beat competition from Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth, Chris O’Dowd and Eddie Redmayne. It would seem this should have been a launching point for him onto bigger and greater things: only it was not to be…
Opportunities did not seem to open for Adam like he expected, as he confirmed himself in a critical Guardian feature article from 2017 (10). As previously mentioned, that feature article constitutes a very strong clue it was Adam who was the originating source for the Guardian’s later investigation into Noel Clarke in 2021 (as noted in the earlier section of this article on journalists Kale and Osborne, and what they let slip in the GQ feature article on them from November 2021). We will discuss this 2017 article more shortly.
From that point, things escalated, and Deacon’s obsession with blaming Noel Clarke for his life got worse and worse and worse, starting to attack not just Noel but others connected to him, to the point where he was making clear open death threats against Noel and his family. At that point, it became a Police matter.
Enough was finally enough, and in 2015, Adam Deacon was convicted of harassment against Noel Clarke, put under a restraining order, and sectioned under the mental health act and committed to hospital. His defence was effectively blaming his behaviour on cannabis psychosis. At no point was there any justification for his claims against Noel Clarke: they were seen for what they were, the delusions of an unwell mind. This received widespread press at the time, an example of which is this BBC article (11). This certainly caused a stir, a very dramatic falling out in the worst way between two men who a few years previously had seemed to be part of each other’s success with the first two “Hood” films.
Is it reasonable to suppose that it was Adam’s own behaviour and attitudes that led to his frustration at his lack of career progress and increasing obsession with blaming Noel Clarke? Adam himself clearly said so when talking to Simon Hatherton in the Guardian’s feature article on him in 2017:
“When he won the Bafta, which had been voted for by the public, he didn’t know how to cope. His paranoia, combined with a new arrogance, proved a toxic mix. “I believed you got a pass into the big films now. It was naive.”
His Twitter handle said “From Hackney to Hollywood” but Hollywood didn’t come calling. In fact, one major figure looked appalled when he walked up to receive his award. “Check out the video when I win the Bafta, because Harvey Weinstein is looking so pissed off; like, ‘Who the fuck is this little shit coming out of nowhere? We’ve never seen this kid before, and he’s come here and won the people’s vote.’ The industry didn’t know what to make of it or what to do with me.” As the rest of the audience applaud, Weinstein sits with his arms crossed, shaking his head in disapproval.”
This quoted section reveals two important things: firstly, that Adam’s own attitude and expectation he now had a golden ticket to success were recognised by him as naïve: and secondly, while a backhanded way of the Guardian trying to make Adam look more sympathetic by referencing the reaction of the thoroughly disgraced Harvey Weinstein, this also indicates that Noel Clarke simply wasn’t needed for powerful players in the industry to not be impressed by Adam Deacon or the prospect of starring him in their productions.
Big money players want dependable Actors if they are to stake the fate of big money productions on their actions. This can be seen by the current meltdown of Ezra Miller, and the possibility the scandal caused by Millers extreme and apparently illegal behaviour will wreck the chances of “The Flash” movie being any kind of success. Talent who can’t control themselves, or seem to be living in la-la land, are a big threat when millions of dollars of investment are at stake.
I thoroughly recommend careful study of that article, because in considering the relationship between Deacon and Clarke, it requires choosing which version of Adam Deacon is the “real” one: and also reflects very badly on the large amount of press pushing the opposite view echoing Adam’s paranoid delusions from 2021, that gave those delusions a very large platform in the aftermath of the accusations by the Guardian against Noel Clarke. In fact, its absolutely pivotal.
The feature article in the Guardian also reveals that during the period Deacon was posting death threats against Noel Clarke and his family, he also had an incident where he chased a neighbour with what’s been described as a machete. At that point, Deacon voluntarily admitted himself to psychiatric hospital: as he says in the Guardian article, he knew he was ill: but he signed himself out after just a few days.
Then followed the case brought by Noel Clarke that led to the restraining order, a separate case for the machete incident, and his forcible section under the Mental Health Act. These are not measures taken lightly, but only applied to those considered to be a serious threat to themselves and others.
The 2017 feature article appears to be well meaning: it tries to paint a sympathetic and positive image of a man trying to get beyond the mistakes of the past, happy to be working in theatre again: but sadly, it wasn’t going to end there. Treatment in a psychiatric hospital certainly can help people return to a healthier state of mind: but back out in society, bad old habits and negative thought patterns can all too easily reassert themselves. I do believe this is what happened with Adam Deacon, and rage that was triggered when he heard Noel Clarke was to receive the lifetime BAFTA award appears to have led him to contact the Guardian and get the wheels of that investigation moving. Bringing Clarke down in a short time frame also appears to have characterised the rush to get the story out journalists Kale and Osborne described as “A sprint not a marathon”.
Deacon delighted in Noel Clarke’s misfortunes, and it allowed what were previously recognised as his delusions to appear to be vindicated at last. Even while noting Adam had been a patient in a mental health hospital again just the year before, this Sky News article is a representative example of the coverage he got in 2021
Tellingly, in his comments Adam tries to co-opt the Me-too movement to suggest mentally ill people should be uncritically believed too. Of course, it suited him to align himself with the accusations of the women: and “Mel”, who I’ve already identified as actor Jaime Winstone, has been his very close friend for many years. Is the main reason Winstone’s claims were anonymised by the Guardian to disguise the fact they are so closely connected, as well as hide Adam’s own role as the primary driver of that story? It certainly wouldn’t have helped Kale and Osborne’s articles credibility if that information had been made clear up front. Its hard to imagine someone with a more extreme grudge and axe to grind, coming from such a disturbed place, being the originator of a story like that, which unarguably wrecked Noel Clarke’s whole life. Yet Kale and Osborne considered that to be the main benefit of what they did, as stated in the GQ feature article about them. There is no doubt their article is stuffed with the very same talking points Adam Deacon had been pushing for a decade, even as he fell into the depths of psychosis.
Nor can there be any doubt how greatly Kale, Osborne and Deacon appreciate each other. On November 6th 2021 Deacon tweeted:
“My career was definitely destroyed by Noel Clarke. He would brag about it. So I’m honestly so proud of @thedalstonyears and @Lucy_Osborne and all the women that came forward to speak the truth. And @guardian for ignoring the lawyers and finally putting the real story out there.”
To which Sirin Kale then replies “Thank you Adam”
Interesting. Ignore the lawyers? How would Adam Deacon know the Guardian’s editor decided to do that when they green-lit running the piece?
Davie Fairbanks
I almost didn’t come across Davie Fairbanks at all in my investigation. It was only by chance that I read one specific Guardian article published in the aftermath of their original expose that his name came across my radar: and really, mentioning him in that article seems to have been something of a significant mistake. And yet, despite only that one reference to him, it is clear he is absolutely critical.
The article in question, “Women’s rights activists dismayed by Met refusal to investigate Noel Clarke” (13), was published immediately after the Police announced they would not be taking any action further against Noel Clarke, on March 28th 2022.
This is the section that caught my attention:
“However, it is understood that at least five individuals contacted the police after the Guardian’s investigation, in addition to the initial third-party report made on 21 April 2021. It appears unlikely that these reports will lead to charges, with the Met confirming that it is not currently aware of any criminal investigation into the allegations against Clarke.
Davie Fairbanks, one of the five, who worked with Clarke on the film Legacy and was a shareholder in his since dissolved production company Unstoppable Entertainment Ltd, contacted the Met shortly after the Guardian’s investigation was published in April 2021.
Fairbanks alleges that he did not hear back from the Met after providing his statement. “I can’t imagine what these women are thinking today,” said Fairbanks. “These women need to be heard, and that hasn’t happened.”
The Met did not immediately respond to a request for clarification of Fairbank’s claims.”
These few paragraphs are absolutely eye opening, and quite shocking.
Firstly, the Guardian is revealing that as far as it knows, only FIVE people went to the police. Not twenty. Just five. And it doesn’t even say that with complete certainty, “it is understood” is a vague statement, not a declarative fact like “the Guardian can confirm/The Guardian can verify”.
And one of those people was a man!
So, at most, only four women who were the basis of the Guardians article ever went anywhere near a Police Station to take their claims further. This immediately speaks volumes about why the Police decided they had nothing to go on that could lead to a credible prosecution: most of the accusers couldn’t be bothered! Maybe they didn’t believe their own stories enough to put their names and reputations on the line by making it a matter of law. But this also matches what BAFTA said when the story first broke in 2021, that “complaints had been made but there was no evidence to investigate”
But who is Davie Fairbanks, and why is he involved in making accusations against Noel Clarke?
Well, his IMDB profile lists him as both writer and director of the 2015 film “legacy”: the very same film that the main female accuser, Gina Powell, claimed resulted in a naked audition tape being made and shared by Noel Clarke of the audition of Jahannah James. To reiterate no evidence of its existence has ever been proved, and James herself has certainly never seen it to know with certainty that Powell’s claims to her about Clarke have any shred of proof to them.
But as the director of that project, it is inconceivable that Davie Fairbanks himself was not in that room while those auditions were taking place. If not the director, who else would be in the room? Very few people!
If Noel Clarke is supposed to be guilty of breaching industry standards with how that audition was conducted: shouldn’t the actual Director, Davie Fairbanks, not be in the dock with him? No footage should have been shot at all, such an audition is supposed to be simply to check the Actors can perform the scene. Is Fairbanks claiming footage was shot? If so, isn’t he incriminating himself? Or is Fairbanks lying about that, or did the basis of his report to police have nothing to do with the production of Legacy at all? We just don’t know.
And yet Fairbanks is supposed to be one of only five people to actually take a complaint about Clarke to the Police, as far as the Guardian knows (although in fact, it can’t be certain…)
Yet that same Guardian quote also states Fairbanks was a shareholder in Clarkes production company Unstoppable. Is this, like appears to be true of Gina Powell herself, another example of some kind of business sour grapes really driving what’s been behind accusations?
As established, the Guardian kept six accusers completely hidden and didn’t even talk about their allegations. Was Fairbanks one of them? Is the presumption everyone involved in talking to the Guardian was female false? If so, was Adam Deacon another?
It would be extraordinary if the Guardian provided cover for Fairbanks while alleging Noel Clarke was guilty of breaching industry standards Fairbanks himself was equally culpable of: yet here we have it, with Fairbanks identity falling out of the cracks in just one article put out 11 months after the original accusations went public.
Fairbanks himself MUST know the truth about whether the naked audition with James was filmed or not. Why has he not gone on the public record to verify Powell’s claims? Fairbanks has no reason to compromise Powell’s story with inconvenient truth if he has his own reason to see Noel Clarke brought down. But then, how do we know Gina Powell even went to the Police at all?
As well as Fairbanks relationship with Powell, what about other accusers, and women who interjected themselves on social media as the story broke? How did Fairbanks really get so invested? Is he just the “White Knight” he is posing as, or is there more to him?
Sometimes, while investigating a matter, instinct is as valuable as a hard fact, and I cannot help but think Fairbanks may be a key, that if turned, could unravel far more about this whole matter that could only further damage the credibility of accusations against Noel Clarke. However, there are limits to what I can achieve as an ordinary citizen, doing my best to look into what the press seems happy to turn their backs on. Maybe a professional journalist could follow the thread with the help of their increased resources?
As an example of what’s out there, a man called Michael Warburton open tweeted the following:
“@realadamdeacon: a brother of mine – Davie Fairbanks (check his IMDb) – asked me to reach out to you (he’s not on social media).
Follow me back & I’ll DM you his number and briefly why he wants to re-connect with you.
Cheers man, stay strong & keep with the fight back.”
So not only is this evidencing an attempt to create a connection between Adam Deacon and Davie Fairbanks: it’s talking about a RE-connection. What do Noel Clarke accusers have to re-connect about? Whether to risk taking their media narratives to the actual law? Or is this tweet an attempt to place a public red herring, at the apparent prompting of Fairbanks, to disguise that Fairbanks and Deacon had been communicating for some time? Whichever, it’s all very mysterious, and the involvement in both these men in what happened to Noel Clarke demands further scrutiny.
James Krishna Floyd
James Krishna Floyd is an Actor, Director and Writer. His initial involvement is as one of three people who put their names to the joint letter to BAFTA warning them there were allegations against Noel Clarke on March 29th 2021, as evidenced in this Daily Mail article: (14)
This is significant in two ways: firstly, because BAFTA publicly stated they couldn’t act on that letter because there was no evidence provided for them to actually investigate (which is why Noel Clarke’s Lifetime achievement award still went ahead).
Secondly because Krishna Floyd is quoted by the Guardian in their April 29th article making allegations against Clarke public, but not presented as a man who had already involved himself trying to get BAFTA to cancel Noel Clarke, but just as someone quoted for comment: although it does make clear he has been in contact with “several women” making allegations to the Guardian.
“James Krishna Floyd, a 2013 Bafta Breakthrough Brit and a star of ITV’s The Good Karma Hospital, has been in touch with a number of women who have made allegations against Clarke. He says the industry needs to improve its approach to safeguarding. “For the sake of survivors, our industry must change radically,” Krishna Floyd says. “Every organisation with any power or duty of care should start implementing proper, efficient systems to prevent any alleged abuse from happening.”
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I can’t speak to Krishna Floyd’s motives, perhaps he is a sincere man caught up in events, but I believe he is notable, firstly because he was clearly involved in the initial attempt to get Noel Clarke’s award cancelled, and secondly because the Guardian didn’t fully represent that in their expose article. Why not? To make it look less like a hit job?
It can’t be denied Krishna Floyd has close ties with fellow signatory to the BAFTA letter, Sally El Husaini. Krishna Floyd was the main factor in the critical success of El Husain’s one feature length film, “My Brother the Devil” from 2013, and they are listed together as joint director of upcoming movie project “Unicorn”, for which Floyd also has the writers credit. Going to BAFTA hasn’t done their careers any harm.
The Daily Mail states that in conversation with Krishna Floyd, BAFTA chair Krishnendu Majumdar stated that:
“People will say, “Bafta knew [about the allegations], and didn’t do anything about it. We’ve been trying to do something about it. In the court of public opinion we are going to be . . . this will destroy us.”
END QUOTE.
***
That article also makes clear BAFTA’s lawyers warned them they did not have grounds that warranted a suspension, and that there was fear the organisation was being railroaded into wrecking an innocent man’s career. Hard to think Krishna Floyd didn’t know the consequences of what he was demanding of BAFTA, but he demanded it anyway, due process for Noel Clarke be damned.
Chrissie Chong, Mandeep Dhillon and Rosie Day
Chrissie Chong, Mandeep Dhillon, and Rosie Day are all Actors who had a dramatic impact on the social media traction of the Guardian’s article in the immediate hours after its release. They all made tweets and retweets backing the allegations against Noel Clarke, and Chong and Dhillon’s comments made national press as a result, as seen in this Sun article from May 1st 2021, although identical coverage was given in other papers: “’ABOUT TIME’ Noel Clarke’s Bulletproof co-stars brand him ‘sexual predator’ and say sex allegations ‘industry’s best kept secret” (15)
On Twitter, Chong tweeted: “If in doubt, trust me, it’s true. Why would 20 women put themselves through reliving their traumas to bring down an actor who isn’t even a household name? He’s a sexual predator #stoppable.”
While on Instagram, Dhillon commented “About f****** time. Don’t @ me.”, to which Chong replied: “Took the words right out of my mouth.”
Both then made identical tweets: “We stand by the women sexually harassed by Noel Clarke #stoppable #timesup #metoo.”
Meanwhile, Day retweeted the Guardian’s article, giving it a lot of shares and likes, and would herself tweet on the day it went public: “As I read somewhere the other day- When the abuser is welcome, the victim is not! I stand in solidarity with every. single. Woman”. She has also directly interacted with Journalist Sirin Kale on that platform and said that Kale and Osbornes nomination for the Press Gazette’s “British Journalism Award” was “So. Well. Deserved”, using full stops for added emphasis.
Chong and Dhillon are clearly alleging they knew rumours about Noel Clarke and are supporting the Guardian’s article. While maybe Day is just what she seems, an Actor reacting to the story coming out she previously knew nothing about. However, there are still things here worth noting:
Chong is clearly saying “if in doubt, trust me, its true”. And yet Chong herself has said nothing, made no public allegations against Clarke at all. How does she know? What does she know? And how is she supposed to be “trustable” just on her say-so, when in fact she appears to have done nothing whatsoever to support the women in the Guardian by actually being prepared to tell the truth she claims to know?
Both Chong and Dhillon worked with Clarke in 2017 and Chong’s character was killed off. She therefore had no further stake in income from a TV series, why didn’t she come forward then? Instead, she has sat on what she claims to know, and is still doing so.
Dhillon’s comment appears to indicate her position is the same, that she had some kind of direct knowledge before the article against Clarke came out, but has similarly said nothing meaningful in public to actually aid that cause. Industries best kept secret? Who kept that secret? Chong and Dhillon themselves, it seems, and they seem just as comfortable keeping those secrets today as at any point in the past. Hardly creditable if their claims are sincere!
But what if there is more to this?
The reason Chong’s comments in particular, but also Dhillon’s, became in themselves newsworthy is because they appeared to be outside the actual Guardian story itself, but gave it extra credibility by appearing to confirm the allegations. Day also clearly gave the story more credibility.
But the Guardian kept the identities and stories of six accusers completely secret. Is it possible one, two or even all three of these women were far more involved than their public comments appear to indicate?
If even one of them was secretly part of the 20 women involved in the Guardian’s investigation (18 women if two of them were really Fairbanks and Deacon), the Guardian gave them cover by keeping their names and actual stories out of it, but then they used their social media platforms to pose as women not directly involved in the story to give it more credibility. That in itself would be very deceptive behaviour. A deception that would have been actively aided by the Guardian colluding to keep their public names out of it….
Maybe this article might incentivise Chong Dhillon and Day to be more forthright about the real level of their involvement in the story: but then none seem to want to say anything in the aftermath of the Police declining to take a prosecution forward, same as everyone else involved. Does this really come across as the behaviour of people with first hand knowledge of the matter, as Chong and Dhillon publicly claim to be? Where is their outrage at the injustice of it all? Strangely muted… Food for thought!
CONCLUSION: SUMMARISING MY INVESTIGATION:
I could never have imagined when I first read that Guardian article, feeling as shocked as everyone else at the sheer density of its claims, that 16 months later I would be putting multiple weeks into investigating it, to try and establish how significant those claims really are. I am not the sort of man to have a prejudice against women coming forward with stories of male abuse, and I was silent and patient all those months, letting the process unfold, without prejudgement. In fact, I could say more than that: I accepted the allegations on the face of it in good faith: on the proviso the accusers were going to engage with the process, and prove their claims at the end of a legal road. Only 20% actually doing so, as we have seen the Guardian itself admit, doesn’t inspire confidence most of these women were really prepared to go to the wire for what they were saying in the press.
But ever since the Police declared there would be no criminal charges, being fully accurate, “No investigation after assessment”, so really falling over at the hurdle before there can even be a question of charges, the situation has sat less and less well with me. I decided it was time to ask questions, or answers might never be forthcoming. I have followed my path, and here we are. And my conclusions about what I found compel me to be sceptical the Guardian article is credible, and coming down on the side of Noel Clarke getting his life back.
What other consequences should happen, should the Guardian and BAFTA pay compensation, what we should think of the women involved now, I’m not going to speculate on: although I do think Noel should at least be given his award back! That would at least be a strong symbol of now wanting there to be justice for him. However, none of that is down to me, I have written this article to report my findings, and to raise questions, not pass any final judgements: that’s for society to work out as a whole.
I fully appreciate how difficult it is to believe so many women could come forward with accusations that ultimately aren’t justified. Indeed, I do not believe this article can conclusively prove such a thing. If everyone involved was subject to real transparency, and we could see all the communications behind the scenes, the objective truth of the matter would be easy to establish.
However, that’s not how the world works. I believe the best my efforts can achieve is to ask questions and raise reasonable doubts, and I think I have done that: what you make of that, as the reader, is going to be up to you.
Perhaps some of these accusations are simply malicious. There are certainly people involved with real and provable malice towards Noel Clarke, for issues that have nothing to do with “sexual predation”. Perhaps others are mistakes, people being convinced for one incentive or another to see past events in a context that isn’t really justified. Perhaps some people, especially in the ten years Noel Clarke was working in the industry before MeToo became a thing, were actually upset at the time, but didn’t let it show. Yet the one time someone did say something, Helen Atherton, it was immediately responded to, and the offending behaviour stopped. Is that the response of a monster, or a man who didn’t realise he had drifted over a line? And yet Noel Clarke’s name never came up at all during MeToo.
Noel Clarke himself has certainly said he regrets past actions and upset he may have caused and has vowed to become a better man.
In the feature article he had in the Daily Mail with journalist Sarah OIiver published after the Police announced there would be no investigation, published on May 28th 2022 “’I’m not a predator’: Doctor Who star Noel Clarke hits back at allegations in explosive first interview” (3), Noel Clarke is not short of mea culpas and willingness to take his share of the blame. I believe self-honesty always deserves a measure of respect.
“He acknowledges that not all of his past behaviour has been beyond reproach, particularly when events of almost two decades ago are judged by the standards of today.
“I’ve been a regular dude, for sure, I flirt. Have I ever made a saucy comment? One hundred per cent. But not to the extent that it warranted the destruction of my life.
‘I can’t say I never talked about sex at work. We’re adults in a workplace and people make jokes and have conversations with each other that cross the line. Sometimes you’re with each other for six, seven months, away from home. I think sometimes these are just normal, or slightly inappropriate, conversations that people have. I was never involved in any conversation that I didn’t believe was mutual, wasn’t being reciprocated.
‘Maybe I should have known better. But you know what, I didn’t always know better.”
END QUOTE
This certainly makes sense to me. I have spent many years working in some sort of management, so have also spent large amounts of time away from home with only work colleagues for company, whether on the clock or not (I work for myself these days so don’t bother looking for an employer). I was perhaps wiser than Noel Clarke, in that I followed the maxim “friendly not friends”, but I saw the consequences for others when they got themselves into messes confusing the line between professional and personal. I can understand that even more in the context of the film industry where people with flamboyant and charismatic personalities do spend weeks and months away from home, away from anyone they know, getting projects done. It’s easy to see these people have no-one else to relate to, other than each other, and how naive trust to let respective hair down at the time can come to bite someone hard years later, especially with how our culture has changed in the last seven years.
In that, I think Noel Clarkes biggest provable crime is not changing enough as society changed around him, and not being able to escape the past once it was weaponised against him. There is a certain “laddishness” about him, comes across in shows like Channel 5’s “Greatest Ever Celebrity Wind-ups” and in interviews he has done over the years. But none of this makes him a bad man, and certainly doesn’t make him irredeemable.
If his accusers are now unhappy he won’t face Police prosecution, and they are actually genuine, they need to look at themselves, and why only four women, at most, actually went to the Police. Because that blame is on them, and whatever solidarity may have existed between them participating in being part of the Guardian article appears to have quickly evaporated like mist.
I would also point out there were 183,587 reports of sex crime in the UK in 2021 alone. If even 1% of those reports were malicious, that’s close to 2000 people falsely accused. In that context, 20 people coming together to tell a joint narrative, to ensure a man they hated for one reason or another lost an award that would have been the pinnacle of his professional success, would be only 1% of that. And there is research available that suggests the real level of false reports could be anywhere between 2% to 8%. People tell lies for bad reasons, and its not incredible to think that could be the case here, especially in an industry like the film industry. Nor are accusers normally actively advertised for, and sought out by a national newspaper. Some of the weaker claims against Clarke certainly have the feeling of a story that was never really going to go anywhere, told to just be involved.
The problem for Noel Clarke in terms of resentments he may have created in the minds of others is that he is very talented, and very driven. He wasn’t content to sit back and just be an Actor and let work come to him as it may, he pushed himself to be a writer, and then a producer. It’s because of his drive and work ethic, and what those qualities did for others, including representation for Actors and other talent of colour, he was considered qualified for the lifetime BAFTA award at all.
Yet it’s inevitable that when you are in a position of greater power, because of greater responsibility, there are unavoidable consequences. Having power, no matter how well someone tries to use it, makes them the person who sometimes says NO, frustrating the dreams and ambitions of others. From that, resentments are going to fester, and ultimately some enemies are going to be made. People are people, human nature is human nature, and that little green monster of jealousy rears its head. That’s certainly what seems to have been the seed of events that ended up tipping Adam Deacon down a very dark path, and he isn’t going to be the only one.
I’d also like to note something else from the Guardian article:
“The Guardian also contacted others who worked with Clarke who either declined to comment or spoke positively of him”
END QUOTE.
How MANY people? How many people did the Guardian contact? It found somewhere between 14 and 20 women to take part in their article with things to say against Noel Clarke, but how many people did Kale and Osborne actually talk to in their three and a half week mad dash to get some sort of story out to achieve their aims?
Potentially, it could have been dozens, even hundreds. Hundreds of people who didn’t recognise the characterisation of Noel Clarke as the man being painted by the Guardian articles angle, and wouldn’t give the Guardian the kind of quotes it wanted. But all those people just get lumped together, summarised, and dismissed, in a single sentence amongst the profundity of words Kale and Osborne used to paint the picture they wanted to portray. Which has taken an even greater profundity of words from myself to counter, based on using my brain and analysing the available information.
Once again, human nature is human nature. If events weren’t driven at a mad rush, if BAFTA had a bit of backbone and insisted on due process instead of being driven into knee-jerk reactions in a panic about how the accusations made THEM look (sod Noel Clarke! Expendable to protect our organisation!), this would have played out rather differently. BAFTA could at least have put Clarke on “suspension” until the truth of the matter could be determined. That is standard practise in pretty much every other organisation in the country, but it didn’t happen here.
Furthermore, its worth pointing out Noel Clarke wasn’t just a multiple BAFTA award winner, he was a pivotal part of BAFTA, and had been on BAFTA’s film committee for 7 years, a position subject to a member vote every two years. Especially post Weinstein, (and with a certain sense of guilt they used to suck up so hard to that real sexual predator), if there had been even a sniff of allegations against Noel Clarke circulating through the industry, there is no way they would not have acted. They would scarcely dare not to! Exactly why the dramatic but evidence free accusations made to BAFTA hit them for six: it just wasn’t the Noel they knew. But in the end, all it took was being railroaded by one article, provoking a visceral immediate emotional public reaction, that saw BAFTA fold like a cheap suit. Best kept secret in the industry? A man too powerful to speak up against? Objectively, that’s just rubbish. BAFTA proved itself a paper tiger, and they let Noel Clarke down.
In fact, the whole question of due process has been thrown in the bin when it comes to Noel Clarke. I do think BAFTA failed in their duty of care. When I think about accusations of all kinds that get made against celebrities or establishment figures in all fields, whether its entertainment, media, sports, politics, even people actually facing serious accusations of real sexual predation, offences like Rape which no-one has claimed applies to Noel, others have been treated much more fairly: at least been given benefit of the doubt while investigations have gone ahead, and not been torn down by the press until actually proved guilty. Hard to think of anyone whose been treated worse in recent memory. I have even heard it said Noel was the wrong “kind” of black man to win the lifetime BAFTA. There is a sniff of something very rotten about the whole thing.
Just why was it ok for Noel to be torn down, defamed, and traduced so thoroughly? Those who have done well out of his cancellation would no doubt be happy if he was never seen or heard from again, and probably wouldn’t cry about it if he really had been driven to slit his own wrists. Has anyone ever deserved a fair shake and a second look at what’s been claimed about them more? Justice denied to one is justice denied to all…
If things had gone differently, there could have been many people who know Noel Clarke well who would have spoken up in his defence. But the price for standing with the condemned in our cancel culture times is high indeed. Unfortunately, cowardice and the instinct to protect oneself, especially when shocked by the quantity of allegations, and not actually knowing what to make of it all, silenced many voices (ironic, when silencing voices is what the Guardian claimed to be making a stand against…)
I can but appeal to everyone with personal knowledge of Noel Clarke that doesn’t match the media’s characterisation as I write these words: people who would have spoken up for Noel Clarke if events had played out a little bit different, with a bit more space for calm and consideration, and if they had been just a little bit braver last year, to now find the will to do what they know is right.
I offer my own inboxes for anyone to contact me, whether they wish to speak up in their own name or give a quote under condition of anonymity, if they would like me to facilitate them doing that. Because it’s the right thing to do.
There are other things about this story that I struggle with that just don’t make sense to me. Firstly, if Noel Clarke is a “Sexual Predator”: why have none of the women got stories where they actually had sex with him? That’s evidence Noel Clarke is NOT a sexual predator!
It’s all “comments and bum slaps” and claims of being “kissed when they didn’t want to be” in the Guardian: oh, except one instance, where Gina Powell is prepared to say she saw his willie. Sorry, but with all the ways the information has kept leading back to her, I struggle to find Powell credible at all.
Why was there not a single whisper about Noel Clarke on the internet all the time that me-too was going down? Prior to the Guardian’s article, all that comes up on the internet is Adam Deacon’s constant cannabis psychosis fuelled narrative, as he himself has admitted on the public record, plus the same story that Noel “uses people when it suits him then abandons them” yadeyadeyaa… that unwell mind has been on a repeat with its obsessions for 11 years now. But no women saying ANYTHING about Noel Clarke actually succeeding with them? A star of Doctor Who, and the Hood films, and Bulletproof, Sky’s biggest hit drama, and so much more: why would he even need to press himself on women? God bless him, I hope Noel Clarke is a good family man and has always been good to his wife, but if he wanted to betray her, he wouldn’t have to try hard to succeed. Can you think of his fan mail over the years? Not forgetting, Helen Atherton’s statement in the Guardian about pics alleged on Noels phone was that women sent them to HIM, not the other way around as claimed chiefly by Powell!
Ask yourself: if this HAD come to trial, and you were asked to serve on the Jury: in the light of this article, is there not at least reasonable doubt? While you consider that hypothetical, you can do so in the knowledge that the experts, the Police, have thoroughly scrutinised everything in the Guardian’s article, and whatever ended up sent to them by the paper, plus the official reports of, at best, four women and one man. They decided there was nothing worth wasting a courts time with, proper cases to prosecute instead, with real crimes and real victims!
And let’s not also forget, this was no mere bauble Noel Clarke was being awarded by BAFTA. This was a man about to receive the greatest honour that organisation can give. A lifetime achievement award: the best reward for a career in the industry! On top of which, won for the first time in history by a black man from a council estate near Notting Hill? Seismic in itself, as Noel would then forever be the FIRST, and firsts are always remembered. Noel’s place in the industry and people’s willingness to work with him on the biggest projects would never be in question again. Like becoming a Mafia made-man. In fact, a lot like being crowned KING.
The motivation not just of the women who talked to the Guardian, but the Guardian’s journalists themselves, to succeed in cancelling Noel Clarke because of that BAFTA award, are scarcely even hidden. It’s just a question of whether we conclude they wanted that cancellation because they are wronged women heroically standing up to an abuser, or, in the light of their story’s credibility when examined, and their own behaviour, conclude they are women who wanted to do Noel Clarke wrong: to purposefully wreck his life, get revenge for a catalogue of slights: and then be declared heroes for it.
Bottom line: either Noel Clarke was constantly pushing himself on women in his work environment for two decades, or he was not. Only one possibility can be true. Either way this comes down to believing in a conspiracy: either a conspiracy of silence so effective that not a whisper of Noel Clarkes behaviour ever came to light until the Guardian published its brave article: or that it’s the Guardian’s article that represents a conspiracy to bring a man down with exaggerations, fabrications and insinuations. I’ve tested the claims against Clarke and found them wanting. Whichever way you feel it goes, winning that BAFTA is at the heart of what actually happened to Noel Clarke, when it happened, and why.
Finally, I would like to return this to where, for me, it started, a Doctor Who fan shocked by what was being said against a beloved Doctor Who actor. To Doctor Who fans, Doctor Who talent is like family, and there is a vibrant eco-system of conventions and other events where fans and talent interact, to the benefit of all. Noel Clarke, having been through the fire, and been tested to the utter limits, deserves to be with his Doctor Who family again. I want to see Noel welcomed back into the bosom of Doctor Who fandom once more, to be able to get on with his life, and I feel a strong confidence it’s a much better and wiser Noel that we will get to know in the future.
I hope you too can see there is a human being beneath the monster society has tried to turn him into, and are willing to let Noel know he can still be appreciated, even loved, for all he has done for others over his long career bringing entertainment to us all, and all he can still do in the future.
The Police have had their say.
That must now be the end of the matter.
Noel Clarke must be allowed to get his life back.
I believe he deserves support, and have presented my evidence why I think so.
I thank you for the kindness of your attention.
John White, August 2022. #JusticeForNoelClarke
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UPDATE: Just before this article’s release, Noel Clarke put out a dramatic tweet just after 9pm on Monday 16th August 2022 https://twitter.com/NoelClarke/status/1559633416634748929
In this 90 second video Noel Clarke makes clear he asserted his “right of access” under the Freedom of Information Act and has categoric proof NO COMPLAINTS were ever made about him to Police, by ANYONE. He further states he has had this verified by four Detectives. In this investigation, I have already discovered no more than five people went to Police, one of them a man, but based on Clarke’s statement, NONE of his accusers ever took their stories to the law. More questions must be asked!
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LINKS USED IN THIS ARTICLE can be found on the original page.
Here is a link to Noel’s feelings about John the White.