After removing a hyperlink the character style remains even after applying default style
Changing the Character style manually works, but if I use clear direct formatting it reverts to the hyperlink character style (blue and underlined) even with default style (black and no underlined) is displayed.
Character style takes precedence over paragraph style, and clear direct formatting does just that: directly applied formatting, not in a paragraph or character style. You have to select the entire link text and then select Clear formatting from the styles list in the toolbar.
Take care: that will also remove any direct formatting on the paragraph level, even if not all text in the paragraph is selected, so if you have manually centered or justified text in a paragraph with left aligned text in the style definition, you will get left aligned text there as well.