Russell Brand rape trial: What his lawyer said about each allegation

Russell Brand’s lawyer questioned how it was possible that one of the complainants failed to mention the assault she alleged happened during the years of his “incredible fame” and “marriage to Katy Perry”.

Ian Winter KC stated that public opinion against Brand, who is on trial accused of rape and sexual assault, has been “perverted and corrupted” following the publication of an article in The Times and The Sunday Times, and the Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

Brand’s alleged victims say he switched suddenly after appearing charming, forced them into sexual activity in a toilet, a hotel room, workplace corridors and his bedroom, and acted as if nothing had happened after the attacks.

Comedian and actor Brand denies seven criminal charges: three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault.

Here is what Brand’s barrister has said in response to each of the allegations his client faces...

Labour party conference

A woman who attended the 1999 Labour party conference has accused Brand of raping her in a hotel room after she had watched him perform in a cabaret show.

Of the woman, Mr Winter said she “fancied him” and “invited him back to her tiny bedsit, and she consented to the sex that took place there”.

Referring to her evidence about him wearing budgie smugglers and jumping around like an ostrich, he said this memory is “entirely false”, adding that there are no photos of him “prancing around in his underpants”.

He referred to the woman keeping a photograph of Brand blowing her a kiss and said that her conduct was “completely inconsistent with the allegation she has made for the first time 24 years later”.

Mr Winter went on to discuss her evidence in a video-recorded interview that Brand “didn’t try to please me much” and said: “That is not the way one describes a rapist.”

The barrister invited jurors to believe there is “no evidential basis making you sure that Mr Brand raped her”.

MTV offices

An MTV worker gave evidence that Brand attempted to drag her into a toilet at the central London offices where she worked in 2001.

Mr Winter said Brand “accepted” the woman’s “no” and so he “didn’t attempt to assault her into the bathroom”.

The barrister said that prosecutors “can’t even put to Mr Brand anything about what he was intending to do”, adding: “They had no idea.”

He went on to say that “the well has been poisoned and she now generally believes she could have been assaulted in the bathroom”.

Soho bar

Brand is accused of groping a woman during a birthday party at a Soho bar, before dragging her to the toilet and forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

His barrister referred to the fact the woman did not tell anyone that Brand had allegedly grabbed her breasts or orally raped her until September 2023.

Mr Winter said the Dispatches programme would have caused her to think about her encounter with Brand.

He said it is “inconceivable” the woman chose to go into Brand’s car after the alleged incident, telling jurors: “How remotely possible is it that if you had just been raped on the mouth you would get into your assailant’s car?”

Radio station

One of the staffers at Choice FM in London told the court she was pinned against a wall, groped and subjected to “sloppy” kisses by Brand back in 2005.

During his speech, Mr Winter said that her allegations are “akin to a maniac jumping on you as you come out of a place or workplace”.

He went on to ask jurors “who would not complain about that conduct?”, and said the woman said “nothing to anybody at all for 19 years”.

The barrister said: “How is it remotely possible that in all the years of this incredible fame, his marriage to Katy Perry, that you never mentioned he jumped on you like a maniac behind the bins?”

Hammersmith Apollo

Brand is accused of raping a 21-year-old fan in 2009, a few days after they met at his stand-up comedy show at the Hammersmith Apollo in west London.

Mr Winter said that she “completely understood what sort of sex would happen or what he would want to happen when she went to his house”.

The barrister also said that the woman’s “fan obsession” with Brand had “totally clouded her judgment and caused her to behave in a way that was completely out of character” after watching him perform.

He said that she went to his house, consented and “wished and wished and wished she hadn’t done”.

Channel 4 massage

The final allegation made against Brand is that he put his head into a woman’s lap when she had been forced to give him a massage.

Mr Winter said that “unless the sexual breathing element of this offence can be provided it’s just a massage”.

He added that it was a “thoroughly inappropriate one, one that shouldn’t happen in the workplace, but not a sexual one”.