Noel Clarke has reportedly been arrested at his London home after the Doctor Who star lost his libel case against the Guardian last month.
The Metropolitan Police are believed to have detained the 49-year-old at his west London home this morning.
Police officers are said to have conducted an hours-long search of the home, with laptops and documents reportedly seized.
The officers are said to have spent at least five hours at the Kensington address and were reportedly seen leaving with boxes.
The Sun reports that Clarke, 49, was arrested and questioned in custody.
Clarke is said to have been released after questioning and returned to his home with two people in his company.
It comes after the actor was told this week that he must pay at least £3million of the Guardian publisher’s legal costs after pursuing a case against the newspaper for reporting sexual misconduct allegations against him.
In 2021, The Guardian published a series of articles about the former Doctor Who star, detailing allegations against him from more than 25 women – allegations that Clarke denied.
A year later, the Metropolitan Police reportedly dropped an investigation into Clarke, and the Kidulthood star began legal proceedings against Guardian News & Media (GNM) in 2023.
If his claims had been successful, Clarke was reportedly ready to demand £70million in damages repayments and pursue claims over allegations that people conspired against him with fabricated accusations.
Clarke lost his libel case against GNM in August, with Mrs Justice Karen Steyn saying that the meaning in the Guardian articles was ‘substantially true’.
After a hearing on Tuesday, Clarke will have to pay a huge portion of the publisher’s legal fees.
Justice Steyn said he must pay the amount ahead of a detailed assessment into the total costs to be recovered.
She said: ‘It seems to me that the sum of £3m sought by the defendant is appropriate and no more than what ought to be reasonably ordered in this case.
‘It is substantially lower than the defendant’s likely level of recovery on detailed assessment and so in my judgment, it does allow for a suitably wide margin of error.’
The judge continued: ‘The claimant maintained a far-fetched and indeed a false case that the articles were not substantially true, by pursuing allegations of dishonesty and bad faith against almost all of the defendant’s truth witnesses.’
Metro contacted Noel Clarke’s representative and the Met Police for comment.
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