Noel Clarke told an actor that he kept explicit photos of women he had sex with to use as “collateral” in case they ever wanted to speak out about him or tell his wife, the high court has heard.
Clarke, 49, is suing the Guardian over publications from 2021-22 accusing him of sexual misconduct, based on allegations from more than 20 women.
Johannah Whyte, an actor and digital content creator, whose stage name is Jahannah James, said Clarke was like a “big brother” to her who helped her early in her career but that she felt “violated” and “betrayed” when she found out in 2017 that he had filmed her nude audition for the film Legacy, more than four years earlier.
In her witness statement, she also recounted a conversation with Clarke from 2016 when she said he told her that he had slept with her friend Ivy (not her real name), who gave evidence on Friday.
“I said I did not believe him and told him he should not say that about my friend,” Whyte said. “He told me he could prove it because he kept a hard drive of photos and every time he slept with someone he would get them to take a photo of their vagina to use as ‘collateral’, in case they ever wanted to speak about him or try to tell his wife, and he said he would save it and keep it.”
Whyte said she found out that Clarke had the nude video of her through her friend Gina Powell, who had worked for him at Unstoppable Productions, and said it left her “devastated” and “disgusted” given her previous close friendship with him.
Philip Williams, who is representing Clarke, claimed Whyte had worked with Powell to concoct the allegations because of the latter’s “financial grudge” against Clarke after leaving his company on bad terms. The barrister said his client denied the existence of the video and asked Whyte if she had ever seen it. Whyte replied that she had not, but added: “I’ve had it described to me accurately.”
Williams also asked Whyte about her communications with Clarke, including inviting him to her play, suggesting it “didn’t add up” if she believed he had a naked video of her. “I didn’t want him to know that I knew,” replied Whyte.
Another witness, Naome Morris, told the court that she was a “starstruck” 18-year-old virgin with agoraphobia and selective mutism, an anxiety disorder, when she responded to a request from the Doctor Who actor on X for “naughty or cheeky” pictures.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, Morris said she initially messaged him saying “I will” but was shocked when she realised he actually wanted nude images and later began asking if they could have sex.
After she sent photos requested by him he then suggested she could come to London for a film screening and hinted they could have sex, the court heard. Morris said she told him about her experiences with bullying and absence from school and a period of time in which she had self-harmed.
In her witness statement she said that Clarke subsequently asked her: “How about me being first to fill you when you hit London?”
Morris told the court she felt “anxious” at the prospect as she “wasn’t ready”.
She said: “I was just enjoying the attention of an actor from Doctor Who … I felt like I had to impress him and not let him down, that he was putting a lot of effort into talking to me and making out he would be the perfect person to be my first [sexual partner].”
She did not attend the London screening but met him in May 2010 when he was in Birmingham for promotional events.
“He grabbed my leg under the table and squeezed my thigh – he put his hands in-between my legs in a sexual way,” Morris said in her statement, adding that she “froze up” in response as she was “totally inexperienced”.
Williams said that his client had been “sympathetic” towards Morris but she had been upset when he had not had sex with her and she had “stalked” him, threatening to spread rumours about him. Morris denied stalking him or that she wanted to have sex with him and said she felt angry at the way she had been treated by Clarke.
