Comedian’s ex-girlfriend denies she’s a ‘fantasist’

The former girlfriend of comedian and television presenter Justin Lee Collins was accused of being a fantasist yesterday.

Anna Larke claims the 38-year-old, who came to fame with The Friday Night Project, harassed and assaulted her during their nine-month relationship.

But yesterday, Sonia Woodley QC, defending Collins, accused the recovering alcoholic of being a fantasist.

The court heard how after Ms Larke left the comedian, she bombarded him with text messages declaring her love for him and asking him about new girlfriends she had seen him photographed with in newspapers or on websites.

When she was asked why she did not show bruises she claims were inflicted by Collins to her doctor, she said she did not want to get her then boyfriend into trouble.

“I didn’t want to do it to Justin. He was the love of my life,” Ms Larke, also aged 38, told the court.

Yesterday under cross- examination, Ms Larke admitted that Collins, of Kew, south-west London, had given her the password for his email account during their relationship because she had accused him of flirting with other women.

“You were suspicious he might be seeing other people? Were you getting a bit jealous about that?” Ms Woodley asked her.

“A bit. There was a slight issue there,” Ms Larke, a video games public relations worker, replied.

The court has heard Collins allegedly made Ms Larke close her email, Facebook and Twitter accounts after reading her messages.

He is also alleged to have made her throw away DVDs because he feared she found the actors attractive.

The court has heard clips from a recording made by Ms Larke of a row between the pair shortly before she left him.

Yesterday, she claimed she had recorded the row so that she would not change her mind about leaving the comic. “I did that because I had decided to leave and wanted something to remind me of why I had,” she said.

“I didn’t want to leave because I loved him to pieces.”

In the weeks after she left him she bombarded him with texts. Ms Larke admitted calling him a Z-list celebrity and telling him he was going nowhere in texts.

But in another text read out in court she apologised for her behaviour and said: “Ignore all the utter insane shit. I just asked my dad to take me to the emergency doctor because I think I am on the verge of a breakdown.”

Collins rang Ms Larke’s family home where she was staying and spoke to her father.

“Had you been drinking?” Ms Woodley asked.

“I would have been drinking but not very much because I was at home,” she said.

Earlier, she described being terrified about Collins returning home from a trip to Las Vegas after an argument over the phone while they were a couple. He was furious with her because she had failed to attend one of two AA meetings that day.

“I remember him ringing me and shouting abuse down the phone to me. I was petrified about him coming back. Absolutely petrified.”

She also claimed he shouted at her and tore up a $20 note because she refused to have a lap dance in a club in Miami.

Finishing her cross-examination yesterday, Ms Woodley accused Ms Larke of being a fantasist.

“I would suggest to you that you are a fantasist,” she told Ms Larke.

Ms Larke said: “I would suggest I am absolutely not.”

Collins denies harassing his ex-partner.

The case continues today.