The court heard from Russell Brand on Tuesday in the disgraced star’s ongoing rape and sexual assault trial, where the judge also reduced one of his charges.
At Southwark Crown Court in London, actor, presenter and comedian (Saint-Trinien, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) was initially charged with three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one allegation of indecent assault, with six women alleging offenses dating from 1999 to 2009. He denies all accusations, which The Hollywood Reporter examined in depth, as presented by prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones during the first week of the trial.
But on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Bennathan reduced the charge of indecent assault to attempted indecent assault. After some delay in court, the judge told the jury that there was “insufficient evidence” to support the original accusation and that they should find Brand not guilty of that particular allegation. The charge relates to a complaint from a plaintiff who said that while she was working at MTV with Brand in 2001, he grabbed her by the arm and tried to drag her into a nearby restroom.
Other allegations include a woman claiming Brand raped her in a Bournemouth hotel room in 1999 following one of his comedy gigs. Another, whose emergency services call was played to the jury on Tuesday morning, says he grabbed her breasts and pushed her into the toilet of a Soho bar, where he orally raped her, in 2004. Another woman alleges Brand anally raped her at his home in Hampstead in 2009, after consensual vaginal sex. He maintains that each encounter was consensual.
Also Tuesday, after weeks of testimony from Brand’s accusers, colleagues and former personal assistant, the court heard from the defendant himself. His interview with police from November 16, 2023 was broadcast, during which he read a prepared statement, according to Sky News.
“As I have stated publicly on numerous occasions and in numerous writings, I have led a very promiscuous life in the past, which I have spent years openly denouncing,” Brand told authorities. “I have never participated in any non-consensual sexual activity.”
Referring to a documentary made by Channel 4 Dispatches and allegations in Sunday time in which Brand was accused of rape and assault – the reports which prompted police to open an investigation into Brand – he said: “On September 16, 2023, a defamatory and fictitious documentary was released in conjunction with the publication of two national newspapers containing false, anonymized allegations, leading to an unprecedented media report. Subsequently, media and police publicly invited new allegations to be made, which resulted in further encounters being fabricated or to reimagine.”
In another prepared statement made to police by Brand in December 2023, he said he kissed “hundreds” of people in public in an effort to be “friendly, consensual and warm” with fans. He added: “There was often physical contact. At shows, press events, trips and book signings, I did my best to be approachable, non-discriminatory and loving. I spent a lot of time at these events.”
He says photographs of these encounters are available online. “Anything I did in public once I was famous could be photographed or recorded and end up in the tabloids – I was aware of that,” Brand continued. “I would regularly make jokes or provocative comments to audience members and during live performances and broadcasts.”
He goes on to say in the same statement that he has “on occasion found reasons to leave, or to ask partners in casual sex to leave, shortly after the experience ended.” He told police: “I had sex in countless locations and scenarios, often with people I had just met. »
This lifestyle, combined with “the extent of promiscuity made misleading in recent media attacks, accompanied by advertisements for the plaintiffs,” has caused “an unfavorable reframing of consensual encounters decades later.”
The trial could last up to six weeks.
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