Can Chris Evans ever make the grade again?

The atmosphere in the station, perched on the corner of Golden Square in Soho, was one of returning normality. In studio A, presenter Russ Williams was grabbing a cigarette between the links of his show, armed with a selection of the day’s tabloids fanned out on the table next to him.

"Trashed" was the one-word headline the Sun used to sum up Mr Justice Lightman’s demolition of Evans’ 8.6m case against Virgin for unfair dismissal.

Describing him as "a binge drinker" and "a prima donna" who is "petulant and given to sulking and walking away from situations whenever he considers himself thwarted", the acres of coverage of the judge’s verdict was easy fodder for the sort of throwaway banter on which radio stations thrive.

Yet bar a few mentions of the case in Thursday’s news bulletins, Virgin was not crowing on air about the victory that could yet see it pick up 12.5m in damages and costs from its former owner. It was the worst possible result for Evans, who had rejected a 3m out-of-court payoff.

In his office, John Pearson - Virgin’s chief executive for the past decade and the man who brought Evans to the station he later bought and sold on to the Scottish Media Group for 214m - voiced mixed emotions.

"It was a win but it is a bit sour because it shouldn’t have got to court in the first place," he said. Pearson has no regrets about luring Evans and his presenting crew to the station shortly after he had a similar bust-up with management at Radio 1 - this time for requesting every Friday morning off. "Some of the broadcasting Chris did - especially in the first six months he was on air - was actually the best he has ever done. He did well out of it and our audience figures did exceptionally well out of it too."

Pearson hinted that SMG was unsurprised when relations broke down with the unpredictable star whose celebrity they had tried hard to harness over the previous 18 months.

"People went in knowing that Chris was a big talent... He was always going to be hard to manage," he said. The ruling that Virgin was right to sack the ginger-haired maverick for breach of contract after a well-publicised three-day drinking binge in June 2001, during which he failed to turn up to present his breakfast show, should mark an end to a lengthy chapter in the station’s history.

As Pearson puts it: "For us to be still talking about a breakfast presenter who left the station two years ago with this intensity is not right, whoever it is."

Now the distraction of the case is behind them, Virgin bosses can turn their attention to plugging the gap Evans left behind. With a new DJ line-up and redefined pop-rock music policy, it aims to restore some, if not all, of the 873,000 listeners it has shed since losing its talismanic breakfast show DJ.

Virgin’s success is vital for SMG to become a force in the consolidating commercial radio sector. It has localised the format to bid for new FM licences in Glasgow and the West Midlands so more listeners outside London don’t have to tune in to the station in medium wave.

The charge is being led by Paul Jackson, Virgin’s Scottish-born programme director, who was convinced to quit Capital Radio for Virgin two years ago only after a chat with radio-loving Evans. "At that time I only knew one facet of his character, but I thought we had a lot in common. He had a great passion. I left that meeting thinking, ‘God, I have got to do this, this is so exciting’," Jackson said.

"The issue for Virgin was to get the records and the external image absolutely right. With Evans fronting it I thought we could build something behind this. That meeting with him tipped me into thinking that I really wanted to do it."

Jackson joined on June 11, 2001, and despite his best efforts to communicate, didn’t have a conversation with Evans before he was sacked nine days later.

The presenter had been ignoring station bosses since the previous week, when his offer to keep broadcasting right up until an England football international one evening was rejected.

The son of Richard Park, Radio Clyde’s former boss and the headmaster from BBC’s Fame Academy, Jackson added: "I was left in programming to pick up the pieces. There was a vacuum. To all intents and purposes he was Virgin Radio."

Any radio station’s success stems from its breakfast show; precisely the reason Chris Tarrant is so valuable to 95.8 Capital FM in London. Two breakfast presenters later, Virgin is grooming its new stars. It has alighted on Pete and Geoff, a Mancunian double act Pearson describes as "world class".

Their show saw a 12% rise in listeners in the last quarter and Jackson has his fingers crossed that growth will feed through to the rest of the schedule.

He also points to Jezza, whose late night Virgin Confessions slot is winning over more women to the station. Jackson says: "What we are looking at is slow, steady growth. We have to be pragmatic and very sensible in communicating what Virgin Radio is and does these days. You can be undone in a day and it can take years to build it back."

Virgin is also building a presence in the digital world, where it is available on DAB radio sets, via Sky, NTL and Telewest. It is the world’s largest online radio station, registering 218,303 listeners via the internet last month.

Post-Virgin, questions are being asked in the media world about whether fun-loving Evans has lost his golden touch. Two of the three TV shows from his behind-the-camera return have already been cancelled, previously unheard of for the creative force behind 1990s classics such as The Big Breakfast and Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush.

But Pearson is in no doubt that he could still pull in the listeners on radio, his first love. "None of us have heard him perform since the day he left here. But he is capable of it, of course he is," he said.

Whether any radio station will take the risk again is another matter.