Andrew Sachs’ granddaughter issues statement in support of Russell Brand before sentencing

The granddaughter of late Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs has issued a statement in support of Russell Brand.

Georgina Baillie was thrust into the spotlight when the disgraced comedian and Jonathan Ross left lewd messages about her liaison with Brand on her grandfather’s answerphone during a 2008 radio show.

The incident rocked the BBC and prompted Brand and the controller of BBC Radio 2 to quit.

During his sentencing hearing on Monday, Brand’s barrister Ian Winter KC said Ms Baillie had issued a character statement to the court as part of the defence’s case.

Follow live updates on Brand’s sentencing hearing HERE

“I still choose to support him as a person I know him to be”, she wrote in the statement.

Mr Winter said Ms Baillie had “as good a reason as anyone” not to back the comedian.

After listing Brand’s work in support of addiction charities, he said “there are a large number of people who had come forward to ask and provide us with statements” but “those people were not prepared in the main to have their names entered into this process, which is completely understandable”.

He then added: “But I can tell your lordship that a lot of people have been helped in very, very often life-saving ways by Mr Brand’s care for them and personal time spent helping them.

“And your lordship in that regard will have seen the statement of Ms Georgina Baillie, who was an alcoholic and now has been sober for six years because Mr Brand both persuaded her, then paid for her to go through rehabilitation.”

He said Ms Baillie has put her name to a witness statement to the court and Mr Winter described her has “the granddaughter of the late, I would say great actor Andrew Sachs – she is the person right at the eye of the Sachsgate storm for which Mr Brand was rightly, and he accepted, rightly pilloried for, for what he said was a disgraceful prank on live radio.”

Ms Baillie has previously told how, after Sachsgate, Brand paid for her rehab and medical bills during her struggle with addiction.

Last week, after Brand’s conviction for rape and sexual assault, Ms Baillie said “justice has been served”.

She told The Daily Mail: “Although he never raped or assaulted me, as I have always said I didn’t know what happened in the privacy of the rooms that the victims and Russell were in and their evidence was compelling.

“He has been found guilty and I now want Russell to right the wrongs.”

Ms Baillie described Brand as a “sex addict” and “seriously unwell” but added it did not excuse his actions.

She continued: “Owning up would be the first part of the amends and the second part would be whatever measures are necessary to put these girls back together.”

The Sachsgate scandal prompted a shake-up in the way the BBC vetted output.

Ms Baillie said the pair were “slut shaming” her and “bullying” her grandfather, adding the prank calls strained family relationships.

After years without contact, she reunited with her famous grandfather in a care home as he struggled with dementia.

“That was the last time I ever saw him. He looked me dead in the eyes and I looked him dead in the eyes. There was my grandad again – lucid moment,” she told the newspaper.

“I said ‘I’m really whole heartedly sorry about what happened and my part in it.’ I can’t control what other people do, only me. So, I cleaned up my side of the street as much as I could. And then he died.”

Brand was found not guilty of two further rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.