Richard Taylor’s reputation faced a deliberate assault when actor Steve Coogan opted to depict him as a vile ‘pantomime villain’ in a film, despite the fact that the two had never crossed paths.

At 52, Taylor was recognized as a kind and well-liked deputy registrar at Leicester University. He played a key role in the remarkable unearthing of King Richard III’s remains beneath a city car park in 2012.

However, a decade later, Coogan’s movie, The Lost King, recast him as a devious misogynist who demeaned women, bullied colleagues, and ridiculed the disabled.

This characterization left Taylor deeply distressed.

“Richard was visibly shocked and upset when he watched the film because it questioned his integrity,” says his wife, Jenis, aged 53.

“Having known him since he was 18, both as a young man and now, I can attest that he has always been committed to doing what is right,” she added.

‘If something needs fixing, Richard will fix it, but I could see how helpless he felt with their portrayal of him, because it was something he couldn’t fix.

‘We asked them to change his character before the film came out – or at least his name – but we just hit a wall.’

Today, after a three-year legal battle that put Taylor, Jenis, and their children Maya and Reuben – just 17 and 13 when the film came out – under enormous pressure and public scrutiny, Coogan, 60, and film-makers Pathe Productions and Baby Cow Productions, in which BBC Studios has a majority stake, were finally made to pay for their cruel portrayal of him.

In a settlement read out at the High Court in London, they offered him ‘substantial’ damages and promised to insert a clarification about his good character at the start of the film. They must also pay legal costs estimated at £3million.

Fortunately, none of the cost will fall at the feet of licence fee payers as BBC Studios is self-funded.

It is the second blow to the veracity of Coogan’s ‘truth-based’ film-making in as many weeks. 

A Channel 4 investigation revealed this month that the ‘inspiring’ real-life teacher he plays in his latest movie, The Penguin Lessons, allegedly had a history of sexually abusing pupils. The teacher, Mike Thompson, denies the allegations.

While today’s settlement will go a long way to restoring Richard Taylor’s reputation, it won’t bring back the three years during which his family feels life has been ‘on pause’ and in a very dark place.

‘It should never have happened,’ he says. ‘But even before the film was in production they decided to make me a villain without having met me, doing proper research or considering what effect it would have on me and my family. He seemed determined to destroy me.

‘Considering how much Steve Coogan has complained about being victimised in the media over his private life, the levels of hypocrisy were off the scale.

‘He has spoken about feeling helpless and damaged by the way he has been portrayed – yet that is exactly how I felt when he did the same to me.’

The film is based on the remarkable story of Philippa Langley, 63, a film-maker and amateur historian who became obsessed with finding the remains of Richard III after taking her son to see Shakespeare’s play about the monarch.

Langley spent almost a decade pulling together existing research and rallying academics, council officials and fellow supporters of Richard Plantagenet – known as Ricardians – to the cause of digging up the king, whose grave had been thought lost for ever.

Richard was fatally wounded on August 22, 1485, at the Battle of Bosworth during a cavalry charge against Henry Tudor. 

Had it been successful, the battle would have been won, but he was surrounded and killed. 

For generations, historians disagreed about what happened to his body. Some claimed it was dumped in the River Soar, others that it was buried in the friary at Grey Friars in Leicester. They turned out to be right.

Based on her research, Langley was convinced the king’s body was under a car park on the site. In the film, she has a premonition that it was under a reserved parking space marked ‘R’.

Archaeologists and the local council were reluctant to dig simply on the grounds of an educated hunch, but Langley persuaded them to. 

Everyone involved agrees that without her dedication in encouraging them to go ahead, Richard’s bones would never have been found.

According to Coogan, screenwriter Jeff Pope and director Stephen Frears in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival before the film was released, Langley, played by Sally Hawkins, was delighted with the movie.

Furthermore, Coogan and Pope claimed they felt ‘a sort of ethical responsibility’ that ‘all the fundamental truths of the film are intact and unassailable’.

But they aren’t.

Taylor, whose real-life role was instrumental in co-ordinating the dig, is portrayed as undermining Langley at every step while trying to claim all the credit for the university. 

Sources with knowledge of the casting process say Coogan specifically requested an actor who could play a ‘pantomime villain’. Character actor Lee Ingleby was chosen.

One scene has him excluding Langley from the press conference panel that announced to the world that Richard’s remains had been found. 

In fact, she was on it – and can be seen on YouTube speaking about the discovery. 

The film also has Taylor mocking the king’s scoliosis – curvature of the spine – something that was particularly distressing for him.

Before the movie was released, he had become chief operating officer at Loughborough University, a world leader in sports science that is partnered with the British Paralympic Association.

‘That was awful,’ he says. ‘Here we were, proud to be partnered with the Paralympic Association, and Coogan and Co have me making fun of someone’s disability. 

‘I had to warn colleagues about what was coming and to reassure them that that simply wasn’t me.

‘But everyone saw it, my colleagues and the students. I think they trusted in me, but it was embarrassing and I’d find myself at conferences or going to gatherings and I’d be wondering whether the people there were talking about me in the film, that guy who laughs at disabled people.

‘For a long time, it made me feel very uncomfortable.’

The film’s plot has the lead archaeologist on the dig, Dr Richard Buckley, 67, refusing to help Langley, and then changing his mind when his department is threatened with closure and he faces losing his job. 

Again, this is simply untrue: Buckley’s department was never under threat, and neither was his job. 

He describes his portrayal as ‘monstrous’ and the film as ‘nonsense’.

‘This created an impression of a male-dominated and misogynistic university intent on minimising Philippa Langley’s achievements, something we never did – we co-operated at every step and I had a good relationship with her,’ says Taylor. 

‘But in order to make that narrative work, all the brilliant female academics who took part in the project are airbrushed out.’

Indeed, there is no place for Professor Sarah Hainsworth, who examined the battle injuries, or Professor Turi King, who led the genetics and DNA identification of the remains, or Professor Lin Foxhall, head of the university’s archaeology department. 

In fact, a character loosely performing Foxhall’s role is played by a man.

And while Dr Jo Appleby, the bone expert who actually excavated and analysed the skeletal remains is in the film, colleagues say her role is minimised.

Taylor wrote a letter to Coogan – who plays Langley’s estranged husband John in the film – imploring him to correct the film or at least give his character another name. 

I have seen the letter – it reads like a plea from a desperate man – but Coogan’s representatives claimed he never received it. It later emerged that he had.

Taylor felt the only way he could restore his name was to sue for libel – even if the legal costs bankrupted him. 

Recognising the injustice facing Taylor, a Leicester law firm, Shakespeare Martineau, offered to represent him on a no-win, no-fee basis.

At a hearing in June last year, Judge Jaron Lewis ruled that the way Taylor was portrayed did, indeed, carry a ‘defamatory meaning’, but rather than settle, Coogan, Baby Cow and Pathe decided to go to trial using ‘truth’ as a defence. 

However, as their lawyers from the media specialists Wiggin were to discover for themselves, truth was in short supply. 

As the case rumbled on, it took its toll on Taylor and his family.

‘All of us, particularly Maya, who was eight when the king’s remains were discovered, were so proud of Richard’s role – he gave a talk to her class about it,’ says Jenis, a local government lawyer. 

‘Then the film came out and he was portrayed as a monster.

‘It was embarrassing and upsetting for the children. They haven’t seen it – they don’t want to, but they are aware of how it depicts their father. 

‘It felt surreal that this was happening to us. It’s been painful and hurtful.’

Professionally, Taylor had to carry on working and encountering people he thought were suspicious of him because of his portrayal in the film. 

And all the while he was assisting his lawyers in building the case.

‘We didn’t discuss it in front of the children,’ says Jenis. ‘It has been difficult for them to understand why it would turn out this way. 

‘Richard and I would talk about it in the evenings. How could this happen? Why was there no fact-checking or research? 

‘I thought with the BBC involved, there would be some responsible oversight, but there wasn’t.

‘Richard didn’t show his emotions, but I could see the stress it put on him. Family life was on pause for three years. 

‘It was like a cloud over us that never went away. All the while, I’d be thinking, “Why us? Why would they do this to us?”‘

When I first wrote about this injustice in the Daily Mail in September 2022, I was struck by the universal support for Taylor from colleagues. 

For example, Professor Hainsworth described him as ‘a model professional’ with ‘the highest standards of honour and decency’.

Professor Foxhall described him and Professor Buckley as ‘consummate professionals and the loveliest men to work with’.

In spite of this, co-writer Pope insisted the film was true, even though his research involved speaking briefly to only one member of the dig, Dr Buckley – whom he then excoriated in the movie.

I asked Pope about two scenes relating to the reburial of Richard III that portray Taylor negatively. He insisted they were accurate and truthful. 

However, David Monteith, the former Dean of Leicester Cathedral who is now Dean of Canterbury, said that in real life, Taylor wasn’t involved in either – in fact, he had left for Loughborough University the year before.

Monteith added: ‘I would say two things to the film-makers: One, don’t claim this as the truth. And, two, when you make pieces based on real events, there needs to be a greater level of respect.’ 

When I put this to Pope, his response was astonishing. ‘I’m a Spurs supporter, and what you’ve done is speak to a load of Arsenal supporters,’ he said. ‘But you haven’t spoken to any Spurs fans.’

Taylor is particularly angry about BBC Studios’ role as owner of Baby Cow Productions.

‘This deserves scrutiny,’ he says. ‘The director-general, Tim Davie, received in writing the concerns about the film from my MP but took no action. 

‘Senior BBC executives planned to give witness evidence in defence of the film.

‘The BBC’s attitude has been poor, and so my MP, Peter Bedford, will pursue this matter further with them and in Parliament with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.’

I asked the BBC to address this, but it didn’t.

In a joint statement, the film-makers said: ‘As a distributor and producer recognised for bringing complex, real-life stories to audiences, we are deeply aware of the responsibility that comes with such portrayals and approach each project with care, integrity, and a commitment to authenticity.

‘We remain incredibly proud of this film and are pleased this matter has now been settled.’

Taylor says a cloud has been lifted from his family. It has also been lifted from the university.

Professor King, who helped with the identification of the bones and is co-presenter with Stacey Dooley of the BBC’s DNA Family Secrets, says: ‘I struggle to understand the mindset of people who, rather than celebrating and championing such a wonderful group achievement, would want to trash it and someone’s reputation in the process.

‘We’re all delighted that the world can now be sure of what we already know – that Richard Taylor was, throughout the entire project, incredibly professional and is a genuinely lovely person.’

Finally, the Taylor family, and Richard in particular, can move on in the knowledge that his role in a world-class project has been acknowledged and put right.

‘What Richard achieved today justifies everything that we’ve been through for the past three years,’ says Jenis.

‘It means if ever his integrity is questioned because of the way he was portrayed in that film, we can say it’s all been resolved.

‘He knows he won’t get those years back, but he can now move on with a sense of peace.’

In spite of all the evidence of Coogan and Co’s errors and fabrications, the actor could not resist one last dig at the wronged administrator. 

Departing from a statement from the three defendants after the case ended today, Coogan said Philippa Langley’s name ‘will be remembered in relation to the discovery of the lost king, long after Richard Taylor has faded into obscurity’.

To my mind, it is a nasty comment that is designed to hurt an innocent man.