- Court behind - 11th November 2026
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- Brand values - 9th November 2026
During 23 years at the BBC, and 43 years in journalism, for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, legal issues have always been central, with corporation lawyers joining him before almost every programme to check the facts, and once again this is put centre stage by the astonishing David Walliams affair, with the failure of a high court attempt to stop media outlets from publishing allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour .
The high court attempt by David Walliams to stop the Guardian and ITN from publishing allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour was unprecedented.
I have never seen anything quite like this.
Mr Walliams, referred to in court as PPT and described as a “well-known individual”, attempted to secure a permanent injunction to stop the news media outlets from publishing allegations about him, which claimed they had more than 30 sources with first-hand accounts.
They said they had information they intended to publish concerning numerous allegations that Mr Walliams had abused his status over many years “in order to engage in, and/or attempt to engage in”, inappropriate and exploitative sexual activities with a large number of girls and young women.
They said they believed some of the allegations were sufficiently serious to justify a criminal investigation.
Mr Walliams denies all the allegations, saying that he was “not a sexual predator” and had not “broken the law”.
This business featured as the front page lead of every single UK newspaper today, save only the Financial Times (FT).
One woman alleged Mr Walliams “groomed” her as a teenager, and told BBC Newsnight she was “angry” at his behaviour.
Lilly Creightmore – who Mr Walliams contacted when she was just 18 – has waived her right to anonymity, and said on BBC Newsnight that a month after they first met, Walliams told her she “could move in with him and basically that I could be his flatmate”.
She said: “I felt instantly pressured to share a bed with him”
“In the evenings, he would sort of come and sit with me and stroke my leg, and one night I think he put his head in my lap and sort of be like, ‘are you sure you don’t want to come and sleep in my bed with me?’ I had an inner strength like, ‘no I’m not attracted to you in that way’… I felt I was being manipulated.”
Ms Creightmore said that she was “angry” and that “this culture of older men in positions of power needs to go, needs to stop. They’re abusing their positions, using young people and abusing young people, and people of any age of course. There were too many men in power still, that are doing this and they need to go”.
According to ITV, Mr Walliams says he did not act inappropriately, and did not “target” her because she was “vulnerable” or “young”.
He said he believed his friendship with Ms Creightmore was a “special one” and he feels “devastated” by her account.
He denies the offers of help or gifts were attempts to groom, manipulate or coerce her into sleeping with him.
In a statement, Mr Walliams declared: “I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret. And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did”.
Coming hard on the heels of the extraordinary Russell Brand case, these allegations (which have been denied), will be embarrassing for media executives.
Brand was sentenced on Monday to 10 and a half years in jail, after facing seven charges: three of rape, three of sexual assault and one of attempted indecent assault. He was found not guilty on three counts.
The seven charges dated from 1999 to 2009 and concerned six women, who are all now entitled to lifelong anonymity, and he is now being investigated over MORE rape allegations made by two women.
He was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a bar in London in 2004. They’d been at a birthday party in Soho and had been chatting for less than a minute when Brand grabbed her breasts.
He has also been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at the Choice FM studios in London in either 2004 or 2005. He grabbed her face and kissed her before touching her breasts and bottom.
Brand was found guilty, too, of raping a woman at his then home in London in 2009, days after meeting her at the Hammersmith Apollo where he’d been performing a comedy show.
For me it all highlights, the importance of knowing significant legal issues, and being joined by lawyers to check facts…
The memories of Phil’s incredible decades long award-winning career in journalism (which included covering many court cases), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
