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

On the evening of 20 March 2025 (day 12), Wiggin informed TKP that one of the Guardian’s witnesses, Davie Fairbanks, had located the explicit photographs of ‘Ivy’ that the Guardian alleges Mr Clarke sent to Mr Fairbanks (Amended Defence §37). The Guardian gave inspection of the 15 photographs the following morning, after the approval of a consent order establishing a confidentiality ring and imposing related restrictions on inspection and use of the photographs to protect ‘Ivy’s’ article 8 rights.

Mr Williams made an oral application for an order requiring Mr Fairbanks to give a supplemental witness statement explaining when and in what circumstances he had found the photographs, and he sought an adjournment of Mr Fairbanks’ oral evidence to the following week. For the reasons given in my ex tempore judgment on Friday 21 March 2025, I rejected that application: Clarke v Guardian [2025] EWHC 996 (KB). However, I did so on the basis that Mr Fairbanks would be asked, briefly, to address the timing and circumstances of his locating of the photographs in examination-in-chief, the Claimant would be provided with the transcript at the end of the day, and would not have to cross-examine Mr Fairbanks regarding the photographs until the following Monday (or thereafter, depending on how long his evidence took).