The jury in Russell Brand’s rape and sexual assault trial has retired to consider its verdicts after more than three weeks of evidence at Southwark Crown Court in London.
Brand, 51, denies three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of attempted indecent assault. Six women, who do not know each other, accuse him of attacks between 1999 and 2009, the decade in which he went from unknown stand-up to one of Britain’s biggest TV and radio stars.
‘A sexual predator’
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones told the eight men and four women of the jury that Brand was “a sexual predator” who attacked women in a hotel room, the London offices of MTV, a bar toilet, a radio station, a recording studio and his own home. Several of the women, she said, initially found him pleasant before “a personality change, a pivot”.
Giving evidence, Brand denied having a “goal” of sleeping with 5,000 women but admitted he had been “obsessed” with sex when he was younger.
The defence
His barrister Ian Winter told the jury that Brand “had an immense amount of sex and none of it was unlawful”. Urging them to separate his treatment of women from the criminal charges, he said: “Disgusting, distasteful, immoral, who cares? It’s irrelevant to your consideration.”
Winter argued the case had been “corrupted and contaminated” by a 2023 Channel 4 documentary and pointed out that the women only went to police years after the alleged assaults.
No rush
Judge Joel Bennathan spent most of Tuesday summarising the evidence before sending the jurors out. He told them he can only accept unanimous verdicts and that no jury can be criticised for taking too little or too much time. After about an hour they were sent home for the night.
Brand, who is on bail, has attended every day of the trial with his wife Laura. The jury returns on Wednesday.
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