Tamsin Allen, Head of our Media and Information Law team, has been mentioned in The Guardian’s story about Jenny Evans. Evans spoke to The Guardian following the launch of her memoir, Don’t Let it Break You, Honey. She credits Tamsin for inspiring her to retrain as a lawyer, after she fought for Evans’ justice when the details of her brutal sexual assault by a high-profile figure appeared in the press.

After Evans starred in her first film, Twin Town, which was released in 1997, she found herself in the company of celebrities. And then she was sexually assaulted by a famous man, unconnected to the film, and his friend.

Evans left acting behind, and when discovering that the man who had attacked her was being accused of similar offences by other people, she went to the police with a letter she had written describing what had happened to her. They told her she would have to be cross-examined in court, and the prospect of being made to feel publicly shamed caused Evans to refuse.

After this, the News of the World devoted a double-page spread to her story. Evans wasn’t named, but she couldn’t understand how the story had become known.

Evans later became a journalist looking into the phone hacking scandal. This was when she discovered that she had become a person of interest to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator sentenced to six months for his role in the scandal. But Mulcaire hadn’t managed to track her down successfully, so Evans realised that the press could only have got her story from the Metropolitan police.

Evans took her case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now rebranded as the Independent Office for Police Conduct). She approached Tamsin Allen, Head of our Media and Information Law team, who said she thought Evans could make a claim for damages against the Metropolitan police for giving away or selling her secrets to the Murdoch press.

Tamsin said:

It is hugely satisfying to represent an individual against a monolith.

In 2014, Evans finally received an apology from the Metropolitan police for “the passing of information to the media” and “for the distress caused”.

Tamsin then took on the newspapers, a number of which paid damages to Evans, although none accepted liability. Inspired by Tamsin, Evans used some of the payout to retrain as a lawyer.

You can read the full article in The Guardian here, where you can also find a link to Evans’ memoir: Don’t Let It Break You, Honey: A Memoir About Saving Yourself.