David Walliams and the legal limits of trial by media

Following the end of appeal protection in PPT v Independent Television News Ltd and Guardian News & Media Ltd [2026] EWHC 2818 (KB), ITN and the Guardian have published their investigation into David Walliams. He denies the allegations. Nicklin J decided only whether publication could be restrained; the truth of the allegations is untested. As I write, there is no arrest, no charge and, according to the Metropolitan Police on 10 November, no report to them of any offence. The public hearing of the case against him has begun all the same. Within a day of publication his agency had dropped him, the BBC had begun removing his programmes and the Labour Party had reportedly suspended his membership. Indeed, even before publication, his name had been bandied around numerous Reddit forums. Alton Towers had also announced the permanent closure of the World of David Walliams on 3 November, albeit describing the decision as part of its regular review of attractions. That is trial by media, and it raises a question which applies to any well-known person in his position: where, and how fairly, will the case against him ever be decided?

Three futures are possible from here. A complaint to the police could lead to charges and a jury trial. Walliams could sue over what has been published and have the claim tried by a judge. Or there may be no proceedings of any kind, in which case the coverage is the only verdict he will ever receive. In each of them the publicity comes first. This article takes the three in turn and asks what fairness remains available in each.

There are substantial interests on the other side of an application such as this. People who describe experiences of exploitation or abuse have an interest in being heard. Journalism can expose failures by employers and other institutions, encourage witnesses to come forward and give the authorities information they would otherwise lack. The resulting publicity also creates the conditions in which a later investigation, trial or workplace inquiry must operate. How well the law manages those consequences is the subject of this article, whether the eventual decision-maker is a jury, a judge in a civil claim, an employer or simply the audience.

What the injunction decided, and what it left open

On 3 November 2026, following an expedited Part 8 trial, Nicklin J dismissed Walliams’ claim for a final injunction against ITN, the television news organisation, and Guardian News & Media. The judgment’s anonymity arrangements allowed identification when the defendants published, subject to continuing appeal protection. The decision therefore involved both the substantive claim to prevent publication and the temporary arrangements needed to preserve an effective opportunity to appeal.

The appeal deadline expired at 4.30 pm on 9 November without an appeal being lodged. Publication followed on 10 November. Describing this simply as the lifting of an injunction compresses those procedural stages into a single event, although it accurately conveys the practical result: the investigation and the claimant’s identity could become public.

The application rested on Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, with Article 8 in the alternative. Nicklin J accepted a real and immediate risk to Walliams’ life and still refused the order, holding that the court’s role in deciding a private dispute carried no duty to restrain a lawful publication. For present purposes the important part is what the judgment left untouched. The court’s summary says the case “was not a trial of whether they are true” and that dismissal “does not amount to a finding that the Allegations are true, or to approval by the Court of any publication the Defendants may decide to make”. It also records that some of the conduct alleged, “if proved, could amount to criminal offences”. The hearing settled whether the public could be told. Whether the allegations are right is a question no court has yet been asked.

The verdict is already being delivered: publicity before proceedings

The Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides an important protection once proceedings are active. Its strict-liability rule applies to publications creating a substantial risk of serious prejudice or impediment, regardless of an intention to cause that result. Criminal proceedings can become active at arrest or another specified procedural step. Section 4(2) also permits the postponement of reports of proceedings where that is necessary to avoid the relevant prejudice. Its scope concerns reporting those proceedings.

That is the position today. With no arrest, warrant, summons or charge, there are no active proceedings for the strict-liability rule to attach to. The Walliams coverage is being published in exactly the period the 1981 Act leaves open. Privacy and defamation remain relevant during that time, as does the law concerning intentional interference with justice. However, the absence of active proceedings can leave the first and most influential period of coverage outside the statutory strict-liability protection. A later criminal court may consequently inherit a public narrative which has had years to develop.

The effects can reach the evidence available to the court. In Attorney General v MGN Ltd and News Group Newspapers Ltd [2011] EWHC 2074 (Admin), the court examined contemptuous coverage of Christopher Jefferies. It recognised that vilification could discourage witnesses with information favourable to a suspect, or cause them to question whether their helpful information could possibly be correct. The risk existed at the stage when that information might have assisted the investigation.

That prospect troubles me as much as the effect on a future jury. A person with a relevant recollection may hesitate to become associated with someone who is being publicly condemned. They may assume that other people know far more, or doubt the value of an account which sits awkwardly with the story they have read. Information can then be lost before a defence team has any opportunity to identify it or ask questions about it. By the time a trial judge directs the jury to concentrate on the evidence, those decisions may already have affected which witnesses were found and what material entered the case. The safeguards at trial depend partly on the quality of the investigation and the evidence it has managed to preserve.

The legal threshold for prejudicial publication is also different from the exceptional threshold at which proceedings must be stayed because a fair trial cannot be secured. The criminal court may be able to proceed fairly after coverage which has nevertheless created a serious risk to the administration of justice. Evaluating the conduct of a publisher therefore calls for attention to the effects of publication as it occurs, including its potential influence on witnesses and the investigation.

Public officials have responsibilities of their own. In Allenet de Ribemont v France (1995) 20 EHRR 557, the European Court of Human Rights held that public authorities outside the judiciary could infringe the presumption of innocence by presenting a suspect as guilty. Officials discussing an investigation must use language appropriate to the stage it has reached. That discipline has been tested already: on the day of publication the Prime Minister’s spokesman called the allegations “deeply troubling”, wording which keeps them as allegations. The Victims Minister went further in a post on X, writing of powerful men whose “horrific crimes are hidden and protected” and declaring herself “proud of all those victims refusing to stay silent”. At that point the police had received no report of any offence. Whether Article 6(2) reaches back to a stage before any police involvement is doubtful; the reason for the rule applies all the same. The Convention’s autonomous meaning of a criminal “charge” also allows its protection to arise before the point at which domestic law describes someone as formally charged.

The minister’s language in Parliament was more troubling still. On 10 November, responding to a question which named Russell Brand, Mohamed al-Fayed and David Walliams, Alex Davies-Jones referred collectively to “All the perpetrators he named”. A reader could reasonably understand that wording as including Walliams among people whose wrongdoing had already been established. Coming from a justice minister, such language carries the authority of government into a controversy in which the allegations against him remain disputed. It illustrates the concern underlying Allenet de Ribemont: official statements can encourage the public to regard someone as guilty before the evidence has been judicially examined.

For private publishers, domestic rules governing contempt, privacy and defamation provide the means of addressing harm arising from their reporting. Article 6 places responsibility for the fairness of criminal proceedings on the state. The protection available around a public controversy therefore depends on the conduct complained of and the legal obligations of the organisation responsible for it.

If charges came: could a jury be impartial?

Suppose a complainant goes to the police and a prosecution follows. That is one possibility among three, and at present the most remote in time.

Article 6 protects a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal. In criminal proceedings, it includes the presumption of innocence, adequate facilities to prepare a defence and an opportunity to challenge witnesses. The state has to secure those conditions in the proceedings through which criminal responsibility is determined. The wider public discussion takes place around that process, sometimes for a considerable period before it begins.

If a case were charged, the practical question for the criminal court would be how to assemble a jury capable of examining the particular charges impartially. In England and Wales, people are summoned at random from the electoral register, with the trial jury selected at random from the available panel. A juror may be challenged for cause, including identifiable bias, and the judge has powers to address concerns about suitability. Prior knowledge of the defendant is compatible with service where the juror can decide the case fairly on the evidence.

Judicial directions then explain the jurors’ task and the limits on what they may consider. The Judicial College’s Crown Court Compendium addresses independent research, media reports and discussion outside the jury. Jurors are instructed to decide on the evidence and to raise concerns with the court. A judge can investigate a particular problem and consider measures such as an adjournment where circumstances require it.

I understand the necessity of working with people who have already encountered coverage. In a case involving a prominent figure, familiarity may be widespread across the entire population from which the jury is drawn. The difficult part is assessing the influence of that familiarity. Someone may sincerely intend to be fair and still struggle to identify the assumptions they have absorbed. Random selection addresses the composition of the jury; assessing an individual juror’s ability to put aside an established impression requires a further exercise of judgment.

The court’s confidence in that exercise has been tested in cases involving exceptionally hostile coverage. In R v Abu Hamza [2006] EWCA Crim 2918, the Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, and Strasbourg subsequently rejected the related complaint in Mustafa Kamal Mustafa (Abu Hamza) (No 1) v United Kingdom, application 31411/07, decided on 18 January 2011. The European Court recognised the danger associated with a virulent media campaign and accepted that sufficiently robust safeguards could preserve fairness. The available measures must be assessed against the circumstances of the particular proceedings.

There is a strong practical reason for that approach. Treating extensive publicity as an automatic obstacle to prosecution would make the most widely reported allegations exceptionally difficult to try. Complainants would bear the consequences of a public response over which they might have little control. Courts need ways to conduct fair proceedings in the conditions which actually exist, including where those conditions are far from ideal.

Research into jurors’ understanding offers some assistance. Cheryl Thomas’s study of actual jurors in 2017–19 found that, following improved written notices, 96% understood the prohibition on researching the defendant. That finding supports the use of clear written instructions. Questions about compliance and the continuing influence of earlier coverage require further evidence, especially when the concern is an assumption of which a juror may be unaware.

This is where I find the usual reassurance about directions incomplete. Prospective jurors have lived in the same information environment as everyone else, and trial jurors ordinarily continue their lives outside court. A direction can tell them how to approach the task and which material to exclude. Its effectiveness still depends on their ability to recognise when an outside impression is influencing their assessment of a witness or an explanation given in evidence.

Judges themselves acknowledge the pull of publicity. Sentencing Russell Brand on 9 November 2026 to ten years and six months for one rape and three sexual assaults, Bennathan J said: “I also need to be careful I am not punishing you more because you are famous.” A judge can write that warning into his reasons, and those reasons can be examined on appeal. A juror who has absorbed years of coverage gives no reasons at all. Joseph Chiffers of JSC Chambers has asked whether unrelated stories “portraying Brand as a wholly malevolent character” affected his treatment.

The trial Walliams could start himself

One route to a courtroom is in Walliams’ own hands. Now that the reporting has appeared, he can sue over it. A defamation claim would ordinarily be tried by a judge sitting alone, since section 11 of the Defamation Act 2013 ended the presumption of jury trial, and a judge gives reasons which can be tested on appeal. Of the three futures, this is the one in which prior publicity does least damage to the hearing itself.

Under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, publication must have caused, or be likely to cause, serious reputational harm. A defendant relying on section 2 bears the burden of establishing substantial truth of the defamatory imputation. Section 4 provides a separate defence where the statement concerns a matter of public interest and the defendant reasonably believed publication was in the public interest. A publisher may succeed under section 4 by establishing that reasonable belief, even where the evidence falls short of proving truth. A libel trial could therefore end with the publishers vindicated and the truth of the allegations still undecided. The meaning conveyed by the publication remains central throughout. Reporting another person’s accusation can itself convey a defamatory allegation; the statutory explanatory notes preserve the repetition rule when explaining the truth defence.

If no trial comes

Much of what has been reported may fall outside the criminal law altogether. For that conduct a criminal trial was never in prospect, and the only forums are the coverage itself, employers and other institutions. Employment duties, safeguarding responsibilities and civil obligations can all be engaged by conduct which falls outside the criminal law. An employer or institution may need to examine the use of power within a relationship even where prosecution is unlikely.

The Walliams allegations require care in this respect. ITV News’s published account includes an allegation of sexual assault at 15 and a separate account of contact beginning at 15 before a later sexual relationship. Walliams denies wrongdoing. Each account needs to be considered according to its details, the evidence and the law applicable at the time. A discussion framed simply around age differences would leave important questions about consent, the nature of the contact and any relevant duties unexplored.

Historical allegations also require precision about the criminal law then in force. Article 7 protects against retrospective criminal punishment. Consent requires its own examination, including in allegations involving adults. These are matters which can easily become obscured when several accounts are presented together and the coverage moves quickly towards a general assessment of someone’s character.

I would like to see greater care in the language used to describe these different forms of alleged misconduct. A reader should be able to understand whether an account concerns a suspected criminal offence, a potential workplace breach, an exploitative relationship or behaviour which the person describing it now regards as harmful. The possibility of overlap makes accurate description more valuable. It allows the public to assess the conduct being reported and helps explain the responsibilities of any institution asked to respond.

Cliff Richard, Kevin Spacey and the consequences for work

Sir Cliff Richard’s experience provides a particularly useful account of harm which was examined in court. In Richard v BBC and Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [2018] EWHC 1837 (Ch), Mann J upheld his privacy claim concerning the disclosure of an investigation and the BBC’s coverage of the search of his home. The search took place in August 2014. In June 2016, it was announced that he would face no charges. The court subsequently awarded £210,000 in general damages, including aggravated damages, with special damages addressed separately.

The judgment records an album recording put on hold and an autobiography project shelved. At paragraphs 332 – 333, the judge accepted evidence of diminished standing and serious disruption to Richard’s life. Those findings give the discussion of reputational damage a concrete basis: work and plans were interrupted during an investigation which ended without a prosecution. Richard then pursued separate civil proceedings to obtain a remedy for the disclosure and coverage.

In Bloomberg LP v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5, the Supreme Court recognised the ordinary expectation of privacy in information about a criminal investigation before charge, subject to the circumstances and the competing public interest. Its reasoning acknowledged the reputational consequences of announcing an investigation, even in a society familiar with the presumption of innocence. Independently investigating alleged misconduct raises its own public-interest questions, while disclosure of the existence of a police investigation can add the appearance of official corroboration.

Kevin Spacey’s case illustrates another sequence. On 26 July 2023, the jury at Southwark Crown Court acquitted him on all nine counts before it. A jury had considered the charges and returned acquittals despite extensive adverse publicity. His removal from House of Cards and All the Money in the World had already occurred after allegations emerged. Later English civil claims were settled confidentially in March 2026, leaving those claims resolved by agreement. Others may succeed in court and still find that the allegation has become the feature of their life by which they are remembered.

Commercial decisions made during an unfolding controversy may continue to shape a career after the legal position changes. A producer may withdraw because of uncertainty about a project, staff concerns or anticipated audience reaction. Reports of the withdrawal may then be read as confirmation of the original allegation. Through that process, a decision taken to manage risk can acquire an evidential significance far beyond the information on which it was based.

Employers also have responsibilities which require them to act while allegations are being examined. Staff welfare, safeguarding and professional standards may call for an internal investigation and interim measures. These decisions are governed by the legal standards applicable to employment, regulation or the particular contract. An organisation may therefore reach a different conclusion from a criminal court when examining workplace conduct under its own procedures. For employees, the Acas disciplinary code calls for a proper investigation and an opportunity to answer allegations. It also requires attention to the relevance of criminal charges or convictions to the person’s work. Freelance engagements and commercial arrangements depend on their particular terms and the legal status of those involved.

Fairness in those circumstances requires a careful account of the decision being made. A precaution taken during an inquiry, a finding reached after an investigation and a commercial decision about a future project have different foundations. An organisation’s public explanation should enable others to understand its position. The complainant also has an interest in that clarity, particularly where a departure might otherwise bring an inquiry to an end while questions about workplace conduct remain unresolved.

I would expect proportionate precautions, a meaningful opportunity to respond and a willingness to reconsider when the evidence changes. Where an organisation has suspended a relationship pending an investigation, it should return to that decision once the investigation concludes. Any entitlement to renewed work will depend on the relevant legal relationship, but reconsideration is a reasonable expectation of an organisation which presented its original decision as temporary.

The same sequence has started for Walliams. By the evening of 10 November his agency, Independent Talent Group, had ended its representation, the BBC had begun removing programmes including Little Britain pending a review, and the Labour Party had reportedly suspended his membership. Those decisions were announced within hours of publication. The broader issue is visible in the cases discussed here: a person can spend a long period bearing professional consequences while the facts remain under examination, and their prospects of recovery depend partly on whether organisations and audiences give later developments the attention they gave the original story.

What fair treatment should involve

The cases leave me concerned about how much of a person’s position can be determined before they have a meaningful opportunity to answer the allegations against them. Courts provide procedures for examining evidence, but access to those procedures may arrive after employers, commercial partners and much of the public have acted. In some cases, the available proceedings will address only part of the controversy which has shaped those decisions.

Responsible reporting can help by allowing readers to follow the status of the evidence. An allegation, supporting material, an admission, an internal finding and a criminal verdict each warrant an accurate description. The response of the person accused should be incorporated into the account wherever it raises a relevant factual dispute.

The prominence and placement of a response form part of that assessment. A denial confined to the final lines may receive little attention after a headline and lengthy account which invite the reader to regard an accusation as established. Relevant rebuttal should be discussed alongside the allegation it answers, so that the reader can assess the dispute as it is presented.

Where wider character material is used, readers need to understand its connection with the allegation. Unpopular views, previous relationships or an abrasive manner may influence an audience’s feelings towards the accused; any evidential relevance to a particular allegation requires explanation. An asserted pattern of conduct likewise needs to be supported by the incidents relied on and the connection between them.

My own concern would extend to the treatment of medical information, the inclusion of family members and the repetition of intimate details whose contribution to the investigation is slight. A substantial public interest in a story gives an editor a reason to publish it. The scope and presentation of the story still require judgment, especially where the consequences for the people involved are already known to be severe.

That responsibility continues as the position develops. An acquittal, a decision to take no further action, a settlement or a later finding may require substantial reconsideration of an earlier account. Readers who encountered the original allegations should have a reasonable opportunity to encounter the outcome too. Organisations which acted provisionally should explain how they have reviewed their position, especially where their earlier announcements contributed to the impression that the allegations had already been established.

Walliams continues to deny the allegations. The public interest in examining them exists alongside a continuing responsibility to describe their disputed status fairly. So can David Walliams have a fair trial? If charges are ever brought, the courts will proceed on the footing that jury selection and directions can secure fairness, as they did for Abu Hamza and as the Spacey acquittals suggest is possible, while the evidence about what jurors absorb before they are sworn remains thin. If he sues, a judge will give reasons. If neither happens, the coverage of the past two days is the only trial he will have, and its fairness rests on the care taken now: in the reporting, in decisions affecting his work, and in keeping the evidence intact for any court that is eventually asked to examine it.

Articles and content on this site are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Do not rely solely on this information.