JAN MOIR: Gwyneth Paltrow trial orgy of white privilege. She deserved win but he almost had a point

On the fourth day of the Gwyneth Paltrow ski-crash trial, a snowstorm swept into the mountains of Utah. It fell upon Summit County and drifted against the walls of the Third Judicial District Court in Park City, where the trial was taking place.

It choked the roads, causing more than 220 traffic accidents and a subsequent chaos that made the jury late and delayed the trial.

It did not halt the progress of Miss Paltrow, who arrived in court on time as usual; drifting down from the ski lodge she had rented for the duration, the rubber lug soles of her Celine boots lifting her clear above the slush.

Six miles to the south, snow also blanketed Deer Valley, the most expensive ski resort in North America and the place where the accident at the heart of this case took place.

In the space of 24 hours, 20in fell on the now-infamous Bandana run, the gentle beginner’s slope where the collision in February 2016, between Paltrow and Terry Sanderson, set in motion the chain of events that brought us to this point. Three years later, the retired optometrist and former soldier, 76, launched proceedings against the Hollywood actress and Goop founder, 50, claiming that she skied into the back of him, causing multiple injuries along with cascading medical and psychological problems, including four broken ribs and a loss of joy. In what? Limbo dancing?

No, in being unable to delight in wine tastings any more, the jury was told.

Sanderson’s lawyers suggested £2.6 million as an adequate sum to compensate for his losses following this calamitous unconscious coupling, which included difficulty in locating north when out walking and urging his girlfriend Karlene to end their relationship because he was no longer the man she first fell in love with. ‘I said: “I’m not gonna get back to normal, I’m a crippled vet with half a brain, you run,” he quoted himself as telling her, while the ever patient Judge Kent Holmberg tuned into the ongoing melodrama of what sounded like a Dolly Parton song.

‘She’s in a great relationship with Bill now,’ added Sanderson, mopping his Karlene tears.

Sad indeed, but was any of this Gwyneth Paltrow’s fault? She claimed it was actually Sanderson who skied into the back of her, and counter-sued for a symbolic one dollar plus her legal fees. This was the crux of what some saw as one of the most preposterous civil trials in American history, a he said/she said, featuring no crime, a low-speed impact and an embarrassing orgy of white privilege in a winter-sports wonderland, complete with massages, slope etiquette, disappointing wines and big tips.

Paltrow was calm and confident when being cross-examined over her testimony, particularly when asked about the ‘losses’ she had suffered from the 2016 crash.

‘Well, we lost half a day of skiing,’ she replied dryly, a bleat of entitlement that was much mocked online. Some saw the case as a plucky David taking on a celebrity Goliath, others snickered that ultimate elitist Gwyneth, the multi-mansioned millionairess with her five-ply, 600 thread count lifestyle, just couldn’t bear to be wrong about anything. Yet by day four, a different reality was emerging. For it was becoming clear that Terry Sanderson’s story didn’t quite stack up.

His memory was selective. His witnesses were unconvincing. His occasional peevishness and injured air seemed increasingly misplaced.

In contrast, it was serene Gwyneth Paltrow who soon emerged as the wronged party. And that, in fighting this case on principle instead of paying up and hushing up like most celebrities probably would, she was standing up for truth and setting an example to her children, who were skiing with her when the accident happened. Even her biggest critics must admit there is something noble about that.

Gwyneth might be a bit of a crank who lives on bone broth and recently extolled the virtues of rectal ozone therapy — a process in which medical-grade ozone gas is pumped into your bottom via a catheter, hopefully by a skilled practitioner. But even when inflated with oxygen and fat free consommé, doesn’t she deserve justice, too?

When the jury unanimously found in her favour on Thursday, Paltrow was magnanimous. Sweeping out of the courtroom in that queen-bee-in-a-hurry style that had become familiar to us all during the eight-day trial, she paused by the despondent Sanderson, laid a honeyed hand on his shoulder and said: ‘I wish you well.’

All things considered, including the fact that he had likened her to King Kong before the trial and Jeffrey Epstein during it, this was a generous gesture. Maybe there is something in that ozone after all.

But let’s slalom back to the beginning. From the get-go, there were two important questions that needed to be answered; how did this ever get to court and where did Gwyneth get that gorgeous green coat?

Naturally, her impeccable trial style was much discussed, from the soft power of her leather culottes and pussy-bow blouse on day six to the thick cream sweaters and chunky gold jewellery on days one and two.

The coat, which made repeat appearances, was a £4,000 number from The Row: thick, expensive, oversized and understated — descriptors that could equally apply to the lawyers involved in this case.

For many of the millions following the televised trial around the world, this was our first exposure to Utah justice and its practitioners — and boy, was it a mind boggle. Lawyers chewed gum or sucked sweets in court, loudly voiced their objections to objections and next to Paltrow’s perfectly pitched elegance, looked as if they got dressed in the dark at an everything-must-go jumble sale.

Paltrow’s team was led by Stephen Owens, who alternated between flights of casual arrogance and deceptively deadly cross examinations, while battling a sluicing cold. He wore a mask when he sat next to Gwyneth at counsel’s table — out of a sense of germ politesse or sheer terror, who knows?

Sanderson’s crumpled lead lawyer Bob Sykes was also suffering from a cold, with a disgusting wet cough that sounded like a shucked oyster had taken refuge in his throat when he barked into the microphone.

Sykes bullied expert witnesses, repeatedly described himself as ‘just a simple country lawyer’ and lost me completely when he compared the loss of executive brain function to the installation of a milking machine on a dairy farm.

Then came Kristin VanOrman, who cross examined Paltrow for the plaintiff. Kristin took pains to appear both friendly and starstruck, while sneakily trying to establish that Gwyneth was a celebrity snootyboots who’d run you over in her monogrammed snowplough, given half a chance.

‘I am so jealous,’ she said, when Paltrow revealed her height of 5ft 9in. ‘I have to wear 4in heels just to make it to 5ft 5in!’

‘They’re very nice,’ said Gwyneth, smiling like someone told to inhale a soufflé through her teeth.

VanOrman blundered on, in her too-big blazers and under a mossy bank of hair which was just screaming out for a squirt of GoopGlow Hair Serum — but who did she remind me of? Who, who? Finally it dawned. It was Lieutenant Columbo, the TV detective played by Peter Falk in the 1970s. With his rumpled raincoat and pestering folksy charm, he would tease out incriminating evidence by asking ‘just one more question’.

‘Just one more question,’ said VanOrman. ‘I am assuming, and you are under oath here, that you are a good tipper,’ she asked, all smiles. This was a doomed attempt to suggest that Deer Valley ski staff were covering up for Paltrow’s supposed recklessness on the slopes because she had hired them and paid their fees. ‘Yes,’ she said. Next witness!

Sanderson told the jury that after the crash he became ‘a self-imposed recluse’ who didn’t really know who he was any more. ‘It is the other personality that is inhabiting my body right now,’ he said, pointing to his head. ‘And you blame Gwyneth Paltrow for that?’ asked Owens. ‘Yes, no question,’ he replied.

On the last day of the trial, there was a bombshell moment when Owens produced images from Mr Sanderson’s Facebook account, revealing he had holidayed all over the world post-crash: sitting on a camel in Morocco, outside a temple in Thailand, white water rafting, partying in Amsterdam and so on.

Not only did it make a mockery of the loss of joy claim, it was the moment when Sanderson’s entire case gurgled down the credibility drain. After only a few hours of deliberation, jurors found that Mr Sanderson was 100 per cent responsible for the crash.

Samantha Imrie, juror number 11, later told reporters that the panel was ultimately swayed by the testimony of biomechanical engineering expert Dr Irving Scher, who drew stick figures on a whiteboard to help prove that the skiing accident could not have happened as Terry Sanderson described.

Dr Scher also explained that he used cadavers in his research, to examine exactly how trauma, velocity and blunt force could wound the human body. And yes, said Miss Imrie, Mr Sanderson’s frequent trips abroad did not help.

Yet still the plaintiff saw himself as a victim, an ordinary Joe defeated by A-list starpower. ‘The pain of trying to sue a celebrity,’ he whined on the stand. ‘They are never accountable, now we have the molesting of young children on an island . . .’

This ugly conflation of blameless Gwyneth Paltrow with the antics of Jeffrey Epstein was the last straw for those who could see that whatever had happened to this damaged man, a middling skiing accident seven years ago was not the root cause of his problems.

‘I didn’t cause these damages,’ said Paltrow at one point, adding: ‘I feel very sorry for him.’

It has to be said that throughout the trial, she was impressive: sincere when giving evidence, impenetrable when sitting next to her lawyers, occasionally reacting with incredulity or annoyance at various claims against her.

She would scribble in her Smythson notebook with her purple Flair pen, take sips of green juice from a canteen and sometimes appeared to be tapping on her phone.

Her husband, television producer Brad Falchuk, was due to testify, along with her children Apple, 18, and Moses,16. As the case ran out of time, their depositions were read out in court, while he was scratched from the list entirely.

So despite the very public nature of proceedings, her golden citadel of personal and family privacy remained intact. You couldn’t say the same about Terry Sanderson.

During the trial, every cough and spit of his life was raked over in public; his medical history, his mental health issues, the stroke that left him blind in one eye and impaired in the other, the osteoarthritis in his neck, his anger management problems, his drinking, the Breathalyser he kept in his car, the restraining order taken out against him, his erectile dysfunction, his two divorces, his brain scans, his lurking dementia, his difficult relationships with his daughters. ‘I can never go on a dating site again,’ he told Miss VanOrman, adding that the entire experience had felt like ‘a character assassination’.

Yet it was one he brought upon himself. In the moments after the trial ended, he was still telling journalists that he was the victim here and that it was deeper celebrity pockets and superior celebrity firepower that had done for him, in a culture where celebrities live by different laws.

Outside, the snow began to fall across Utah again, another whiteout moving westwards across the Rockies. Gwyneth Paltrow had looked emotional when the jury read out their verdict and left the court without commenting, later posting a message on Instagram, explaining that she fought the case because ‘acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity’.

She deserved her win, completely and utterly. Yet in the dying moments of the case, her lawyer complained to the judge for the third time that the court cameras were focusing on his client too much during this televised trial.

I don’t believe they were, after all this was a public case in a public court being broadcast for the public good. Yet even under these circumstances, Gwyneth Paltrow, queen of the One Percent, could not resist leveraging her status to obtain a benefit unavailable to others.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you could see Terry almost had a point.