QB-2022-001397 - [2025] EWHC 2193 (KB)

Mr Lewis, Ms Osborne and Ms Kale stated that on 7 April 2021, at the outset of the investigation, Mr Lewis advised Ms Kale and Ms Osborne not to approach Adam Deacon as a source, and they did not do so. Mr Lewis was aware of him, as he had been referenced in the letter to BAFTA, and had been referred to by Ms El Hosaini and Mr Krishna Floyd, in the context of recounting an actor’s account of being harassed and threatened. Mr Lewis said:

“I believed that Mr Deacon’s conviction for harassing Mr Clarke on social media meant that Mr Deacon could not be a reliable journalistic source – even if there was a possibility that he might have information that could help us.”

Ms Osborne’s manuscript notes taken on 7 April 2021 confirm that instruction was given. And Mr Gibson gave evidence that he was reassured, at the time, that Mr Deacon was not a source.

In oral evidence, Mr Lewis reiterated that “Adam Deacon was not a confidential source. He was not a source in any shape or form”. Ms Osborne, too, confirmed in cross-examination that Mr Deacon “was never a source of ours… He certainly was not behind any of this and he was not a source”. Likewise, Ms Kale, when asked whether she had communicated with Mr Deacon said, “Absolutely not. Adam Deacon was never a source for our reporting, never”. It was not put to any of them that those assertions were lies.

Further contemporaneous confirmation that they did not contact Mr Deacon appears in the following exchange between Ms Kale and Ms Crabb, in a recorded call on 21 April 2021:

“[Philippa Crabb] Have you spoke to Adam Deacon at all?

[Sirin Kale] So, we’re not speaking to him because of the harassment conviction which makes him an unreliable witness and also his mental---

[Philippa Crabb (overspeaking)]: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[Sirin Kale] --- his mental health.”

Nonetheless, the Claimant’s closing submissions allege that Adam Deacon “influenced the investigation”, asserting that:

“The reporters deny speaking to him. Yet it was highly probable that this was a lie, and that he was in some level of contact with the investigating team.”

It is unclear whether this allegation of lying to the Court – which was not put and so is improperly raised – is intended to encompass Mr Lewis, as well as Ms Osborne and Ms Kale. I shall address it on the assumption that it does.

The Claimant relies on seven points to found this allegation. First, in the same conversation with Ms Crabb on 21 April 2021 that I have referred to above, Ms Kale made the following statement:

“It’s really interesting though with Adam because like everything he-. Well, he did accuse of Noel of being a paedophile, which was I think one of the reasons he got done for harassment. But a lot of the other stuff he accused him of is 100% true. So it’s like, oof, you know, he got convicted of harassment when all he was actually doing was just being honest.”

The Claimant contends the most likely source of this view, given the way it was put, was Mr Deacon himself.

That is an unwarranted leap. Ms Kale was aware through her investigation of the nature of the allegations that Mr Deacon had published. She was expressing some sympathy for Mr Deacon’s position in circumstances where she understood that his conviction was, in part, the result of making allegations which the Guardian’s investigation had found to be true (albeit they had found no evidence to support Mr Deacon’s allegations of paedophilia). There is nothing in this exchange to suggest Ms Kale (or anyone else at the Guardian) had spoken to Mr Deacon, and Ms Kale had just told Ms Crabb that they had not done so. I also reject the accusation, put to Ms Kale in cross-examination, that she was lying when she said, “I have never endorsed Adam Deacon”.

Secondly, the Claimant contends that “Kevin Proctor, one of the key hostile sources with whom the journalists worked extensively, has close ties with Adam Deacon”. There is no evidence to support this assertion, whereas there is some evidence to the contrary. In any event, the existence of a link between Mr Deacon and a source (who was no more than an intermediary, with no direct or corroborative information to provide), does nothing to undermine the powerful evidence to which I have referred showing that neither the reporters nor editors had any contact with Mr Deacon.

Thirdly, on 9 April 2021 Ms Osborne sent Ms Kale an email “I keep hearing a rumour that NC forced someone to give him a blow job on set. No one yet has heard it first hand”, noting that it was “talked about on Twitter”. Ms Osborne pasted into her email a string of tweets including one in which a Twitter user accused Mr Clarke of such conduct (against an unidentified woman, and tagging Adam Deacon), and a tweet from Mr Deacon saying “noelclarke doesnt get arrested for sexual abuse”.

There is no basis for inferring, from the fact that Ms Osborne sent Ms Kale a public tweet posted by Mr Deacon, that she (or anyone from the Guardian) was in contact with him. It was a message on a public social media site. As Ms Osborne explained, she was letting Ms Kale know in case it came up in any of her conversations with her sources. But it was “just a rumour”. It was not something they ever heard firsthand. And so, “We never relied on it and we never reported it.”

Fourthly, the Claimant asserts, based on a question put to Mr Lewis in cross-examination, that “Adam Deacon leaked information concerning the complainants to Dan Warburton of the Mirror, implying inside knowledge into the investigation”. Counsel’s question is not evidence. There is no evidence as to who Mr Warburton may be, or what (if any) communications he may have had with Mr Deacon. But even assuming Mr Deacon gave a journalist at another newspaper information regarding “complainants” who were among the Guardian’s sources, that provides no basis for inferring that Mr Deacon had “inside knowledge” of the Guardian’s investigation, still less that he obtained any such information from anyone working for the Guardian. An inference of “inside knowledge” could only be drawn if whatever information Mr Deacon may have provided was known only to the Guardian. That is not the case. Aside from the “complainants” themselves, many of the Guardian’s sources have given evidence regarding the people they told what had happened to them, or who were present.

Fifthly, on 4 November 2021, in response to a tweet from Ms Kale saying that she was thrilled to be nominated with Ms Osborne for an award “for our Noel Clarke reporting”, Mr Deacon posted “Congratulations on your nomination for this life changing article”. The Claimant relies on the fact that Ms Kale replied, “Thank you Adam”. A polite expression of appreciation, on being congratulated, six months after the first article had been published, plainly provides no support for the serious accusation that Ms Kale (or any of the Guardian’s witnesses) have lied when they said Mr Deacon was not a source. Nor is there any merit in the allegation that Ms Kale was “trying to destroy evidence” when she deleted her public tweets, including this one, using TweetDelete in accordance with the Guardian’s policy.

Sixthly, on 11 June 2021, Samantha Anstiss of Wonderhood Studios emailed Ms Osborne regarding a proposed documentary. Ms Anstiss wrote, “On Noel Clarke I’m speaking to Charlie when he is back from holiday and I am meeting with Noel and his agent v soon and he has signed an NDA”. Ms Osborne queried whether she meant “Noel and his agent”, saying “assume you meant Adam Deacon?” And Ms Anstiss confirmed she meant she was “meeting Adam”. The Claimant contends that the implication of Mr Deacon having been asked to sign an NDA for the purposes of making a documentary is that “they had in fact been collaborating on Mr Clarke for some time”.

Ms Osborne explained that following publication of the first article, she was working with a production company on a separate matter. Consequently, at the time, Ms Anstiss was her boss. Anyone was free to make a documentary about the matters reported in the first article, if they wished, and Ms Anstiss was looking into doing so with Mr Deacon. Ms Osborne did not like the fact that Ms Anstiss was “potentially pairing up and doing a documentary” with Mr Deacon, without even having a conversation with the Guardian, and was a little upset about it, but given her role she was being polite.

It can be inferred from the email that Ms Osborne had already been made aware that the production company was considering working with Mr Deacon. But these emails were sent more than six weeks after the first article was published. There is no reason to infer that Wonderhood Studios had been discussing this documentary with Mr Deacon before the first article, and every reason to believe that such discussions were prompted by its publication.

Finally, on 26 April 2021 at 12:00, Mr Deacon posted a tweet depicting acting masks, chains, a stopwatch and laughing emojis. The right to reply letter had been sent to Mr Clarke at 11:34 the same day, and Ms Osborne followed it up by phoning Mr Clarke to inform him that he had been sent an email. The Claimant contends that Mr Deacon could not have posted his tweet in such proximity to that phone call “without intimate insider knowledge of the progress of the investigation. Someone in the Defendant’s organisation must have been in contact with him and feeding him information”.

This is not a fair or reasonable inference in the circumstances. There were a large number of people outside the Guardian who were aware of the Guardian’s investigation. They had spoken with many sources, and contacted others who did not become sources. BAFTA were aware. Mr Clarke and Mr Maza were aware of the Guardian’s investigation and responded by contacting numerous people. The Guardian was made aware by ten of their sources that they had been contacted by either Mr Clarke or Mr Maza about the investigation, and it is likely that not everyone they sought to persuade not to speak to the Guardian was in fact a source. The evidence shows Mr Clarke told others about the Guardian’s investigation, such as Mr Alexander. In addition, the Guardian had also sent invitations to reply that morning to ITV, BAFTA, Sky Studios, Mr Maza, Ms Hargreaves and Mr O’Sullivan. So if Mr Deacon’s tweet anticipated publication of an article by the Guardian, there are many people outside the Guardian who may have told him. Moreover, it may not even have related to an anticipated Guardian article. Mr Clarke’s own case is that Mr Deacon was working with The Mirror, so it is possible he may have been anticipating a publication by that newspaper.

Mr Clarke’s insistence that Mr Deacon was “secretly coordinating these allegations” is, as Mr Lewis put it, “a conspiracy theory which was untrue”. The evidence of Mr Lewis, Ms Osborne and Ms Kale that Mr Lewis instructed the reporters not to contact Mr Deacon, and they complied with that instruction, was obviously true and accurate, and it is borne out by the contemporaneous documents. The assertion that they lied about this is baseless.