Cliff prays for victory in BBC court fight
He sues in High Court over coverage of police raid on his home screened live on TV
SIR Cliff Richard yesterday revealed the ‘panic and powerlessness’ he felt after the BBC aired live footage of police searching his home over a false sex assault claim.
The 77-year- old’s reputation was ‘left in shreds’ after he fell victim to the broadcaster’s ‘obsessive desire’ to break the story ahead of its rivals, the High Court heard.
A reporter working on the story had even spoken of his delight at having police ‘over a barrel’ after being tippedoff about the probe.
Sir Cliff is suing the BBC over its coverage of officers swooping on his penthouse apartment in Sunningdale, Berkshire, in August 2014 following an allegation of sexual assault.
He categorically denied the claim and was never charged.
However the BBC learnt of the probe and led its one o’clock TV bulletin with the story, accompanied by images shot from a helicopter.
Sir Cliff says he suffered ‘profound and long-lasting damage’ as a result of the broadcast and wants ‘aggravated’ damages for what he claims was an egregious breach of his privacy, as guaranteed by Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
His lawyer Justin Rushbrooke QC said the BBC ‘were playing with fire, but Sir Cliff was the one who got burned’.
Yesterday Sir Cliff, dressed in a purple silk suit, sat in court with his close friend
‘Obsessive desire to break the story’
Gloria Hunniford and longtime companion John McElynn, a former priest.
South Yorkshire Police, whose officers undertook the raid and allowed the BBC confirm the story, have already apologised and will pay Sir Cliff ‘substantial’ damages of more than £400,000.
But Mr Rushbrooke said the BBC should be made to pay damages at the ‘very top end of the scale’. He said Sir Cliff is out of pocket to the tune of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, because of PR and legal fees, a cancelled book deal and general career damage.
He told the court in a written argument: ‘It is Sir Cliff’s case that the BBC’s coverage of the search was ... a very serious invasion of his privacy, for which there was no lawful justification.
‘It is hard to encapsulate in words the sense of panic and powerlessness that must have been induced in him ... when he realised the BBC were relaying instantaneously and indiscriminately around the world highly sensitive and damaging information concerning himself – all based upon an allegation of serious criminal conduct which he knew to be entirely false.
The civil trial, expected to last ten days, is being heard by Mr Justice Mann at the High Court.
Mr Rushbrooke explained Sir Cliff had been left with ‘no option’ but to take legal action after having his ‘private life shattered’ and his ‘home violated’.
He said: ‘ What we are talking about is using TV cameras to spy into someone’s home at the time when their target is in the most vulnerable position imaginable and then serve it up ... as the most sensational story imaginable.
‘The coverage had a profound and continuing impact on upon almost every aspect of his life.’ He said the BBC news team had shown a ‘toxic combination of unchecked ambition ...and an obsessive desire to scoop their rivals’, and gave Sir Cliff’s PR team just 35 minutes notice before the broadcast – a claim denied by the BBC.
‘They were desperate to be the first media organisation to break their story, and this desire not to be scooped was the predominant concern,’ he said. He added the journalists would have known they were taking a ‘significant legal risk’, and alleged they had shown a ‘regrettable failure’ to adhere to ‘proper standards’. Mr Rushbrooke also said a BBC reporter had received a ‘tip-off’ about the raid from a source in Operation Yewtree, the Met’s discredited investigation into historic sex offences.
He said: ‘This was a case of a journalist making use of information that must have been leaked improperly, indeed unlawfully.’ The barrister added internal BBC communications showed reporter Dan Johnson had bragged about having South Yorkshire Police ‘over a barrel’ and used his tip-off to ‘get what he wanted’ from the force and secure an exclusive.
The BBC says it had a right to report the raid in the public interest, and that, if successful, Sir Cliff’s challenge would hugely damage freedom of speech. Gavin Millar QC said journalists had a duty to impart information about the activities of state agencies like the police. He explained: ‘The allegation being investigated was one of a serious criminal offence.’
Mr Millar told the court the BBC contended its report was ‘accurate and in good faith’ and it had ‘respected the rights of [Sir Cliff] as a suspect, in particular the presumption of innocence’.
He said that ‘ no doubt the reporting had an impact’ on Sir Cliff, ‘but this has to be separated out from the distress he ... would have experienced in any event’ due to the allegation. He added: ‘It does not provide a sufficiently weighty claim for infringement of privacy to prevail over the public interest in the BBC’s reporting’.
He said any damage caused was the fault of South Yorkshire Police.
The search was made after a man claimed in late 2013 that as a child he had been sexually assaulted by the singer at a 1985 Billy Graham event in Sheffield. Sir Cliff denied the allegation and in June 2016 prosecutors said he would face no charges. He was never arrested.