The jury retired on Tuesday to considering its verdicts in Russell Brand’s trial — the star denies three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one allegation of attempted indecent assault
Russell Brand has arrived at court as the jury in his rape and sexual assault trial prepare to carry on considering its verdicts.
The media personality, 51, who has been on trial for three weeks, denies three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one allegation of attempted indecent assault. The eight men and four women of the jury yesterday started deliberations on the charges over alleged attacks on six women spanning 10 years from 1999.
At Southwark crown court, in south London, Mr Justice Bennathan had said: “I can only accept a verdict from all 12 of you that is a unanimous verdict.” Summing up the evidence, the judge set out allegations from the first complainant who said she was raped by Brand in a hotel room after meeting at the 1999 Labour Party conference.
In her police interview, the woman alleged Brand pushed her on to the bed took her trousers off and raped her. The judge said the woman had invited Brand back to her hotel room. He also referred to the defence’s questioning on why she kept hold of a photograph of Brand.
An MTV worker alleged Brand tried to drag her into a toilet at the offices where she worked in 2001. She claimed Brand had “grabbed my forearm” and “was trying to pull me into the bathroom”. The accused said he did not remember the incident.
Summing up the defence’s evidence, the judge said they questioned whether a 2024 Channel 4 Dispatches programme, which made allegations about Brand’s sexual conduct, had led her to exaggerate the hand on her arm to a wrestle. Another woman accused the comedian of groping her at a Soho bar before dragging her to a toilet and forcing her to perform a sex act on him in 2004. She said he had a “weird maniacal grin” when he groped her.
Summing up Brand’s evidence, the judge said the defendant said in an interview he had no memory of the complainant, but now remembers some of it after visiting the bar and watching her video recorded interview. The judge referred to what Brand’s barrister Ian Winter KC said about how the complainant “gives a different account close to the time and even when calling the police the first time”.
He added: “Once again the defence invites you to consider throughout this, was it the documentary that triggers all this?” He summarised the prosecution’s submission, saying: “Why put herself through all of this all these years later unless it’s because it happened.”
Brand also allegedly put his head into a woman’s lap when she had been forced to give him a massage. The defendant said he had no memory of placing his head in her lap.
The judge referred to the defence’s submissions about what gratification Brand would get from that, and said while it may be “employment lawbreaching behaviour, that does not make it sexual assault”.
Prosecutors said: “That’s not how you position yourself to have a massage.” Brand’s wife Laura Gallacher, who was at court with him yesterday, had said he was “promiscuous but never did anything without her consent”. His ex-girlfriends described him as lovely and gentle. The trial continues.
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