Arrogance cost him a longer sentence
MAX CLIFFORD’S arrogance cost him dear... the judge made it clear in his verdict he was punishing his ‘contemptuous’ behaviour with a longer sentence.
The judge referred to a bizarre piece of television footage in which Clifford wandered outside court mid-way through the case, and stood behind Sky News reporter Tom Parmenter who was busy recording to camera.
He mimicked the reporter’s hand gestures in a clip that has attracted a huge audience on the internet.
Parmenter turned around and said: ‘All right Max? We’ll carry on, shall we?’ Clifford replied: ‘Yeah, you carry on’, but did not move away.
Yesterday Judge Anthony Leonard QC told him: ‘I have discovered that you appeared behind a reporter outside this court whilst he was making his report of your evidence and during which you mimicked his actions in a way that was designed to trivialise these events. I find your behaviour to be quite extraordinary and a further indication that you show no remorse.’
He said the ‘additional trauma’ to victims caused by Clifford’s ‘contemptuous’ attitude was something he had taken into account in sentencing.
Describing the ordeal of a victim who was abused from the age of 15, the judge added: ‘ She has been extremely upset by your public denials before trial and the reports of your attitude during trial – laughing and shaking your head in the dock at the accusations made against you.’ Clifford also tried to make jokes while giving evidence – mostly greeted with stony looks from the jury.
Asked about claims he boasted there was a photo of Diana Ross in his office because he had enjoyed intimate relations with her, he responded: ‘There’s a picture of Frank Sinatra – are you suggesting I had sex with him as well?’
After a morning in the witness box being grilled about molesting a succession of ‘naïve’ teenage girls, he popped his head into a room full of reporters and said to two women sitting in a corner: ‘Are any of you girls free tonight?’
His ribald gag about a woman’s pair of tights prompted laughter from the jury box and public gallery, leading the prosecutor to accuse him of ‘playing to the gallery’.