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Russell Brand was “ruthless and calculated” with an “indiscriminate and voracious” desire for sexual contact, the prosecution alleged in its opening statement at the actor and comedian’s rape trial in London.
Brand has
been charged with three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. He has pleaded not guilty and denied all charges.
The jury was selected on Tuesday, consisting of eight men and four women. The case involves six female plaintiffs, all of whom are given automatic lifelong anonymity according to U.K. law, and relates to alleged offenses that occurred between 1999 and 2009.
Arriving to Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday morning, Brand sported a black suit, pinstriped shirt, loose white tie and sunglasses. He was accompanied by his wife, Laura Gallacher, whose hand he clasped. According to BBC News, Brand told reporters on his way inside: “I feel blessed. I feel of course concerned, but hopeful that this process will lead to good outcomes for everybody — that is my prayer,” he said. Inside the courtroom, Brand appeared to be rubbing what looked like a rock or pebble in his hand.
Riel Karmy-Jones KC is leading the prosecution and set out the case against Brand. As the BBC reports, the six alleged victims “did not know each other, have never met each other” and “came forward independently of each other,” Karmy-Jones noted.
Brand was “ruthless and calculated” and “sometimes might tell women what they wanted to hear” to satisfy his sexual appetite, Karmy-Jones alleged. “The circumstances of the offending were as wide and as varied as the defendant’s career,” she said. “His strong desire for some form of sexual contact was indiscriminate and voracious.”
Karmy-Jones called Brand “a flirt with a huge sexual appetite — childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met.” He would “appear indifferent” after an alleged assault, she claimed. “Sometimes he would leave promptly after the incident, sometimes making an excuse to get away or sometimes simply continuing as though nothing wrong had happened,” she said, according to BBC News.
The prosecution brought in testimony from a former friend of Brand’s, who claimed that the comedian bragged to him that he wanted to sleep with “5,000 women” in his lifetime and had laid out “rules” to achieve this, including telling them “what they want to hear.”
Turning to the first alleged victim, who was in her 20s at the time of the incident in 1999, the prosecution said when she first met Brand she assumed he was gay. Later at her home, she invited him to make himself a cup of tea while she used the bathroom. When she emerged, she was shocked to find him “partially undressed.”
“Perhaps some of her confusion can be explained by how the defendant was behaving, because as she came out of the bathroom he was prancing around the room — a bit like an ostrich, doing silly walks like Basil Fawlty,” Karmy-Jones said, as reported by BBC News. “She was taken aback, she was shocked and didn’t really know what to do — and in her words she froze a bit.”
The prosecution then alleged that Brand raped her. She “described drifting out of her head, knowing there was nothing she could do, as he pulled her trousers and underwear down, penetrated her vagina with his penis — raping her,” Karmy-Jones said.
The complainant claims she didn’t report the alleged incident at the time because of Brand’s “celebrity status,” which she “now greatly regrets.” When she did eventually file a police report and Brand was questioned about the incident, the prosecution claimed he did not remember her name or the incident, but insisted that he “had never engaged in non-consensual activity.”
The second incident occurred in 2001, the prosecution claimed, and involved a woman in her 30s at the time who was working at MTV. The prosecution alleged that Brand “lurched forward and grabbed her breasts,” and then “squeezed them with both his hands,” as BBC News reports.
In the mid-2000s, Brand was best known as a comedian and actor, presenting shows such as “Big Brother’s Big Mouth” and starring in films such as “Get Him to the Greek” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” He has since pivoted to podcasting and influencing online.
The trial is expected to run for six weeks.
