Russell Brand was a ruthless, calculated and manipulative sexual predator who used his celebrity status and force to rape and assault women, a court has heard. The 51-year-old comedian is alleged to have had an “insatiable desire” to get what he wanted and treated women as a means to an end, jurors were told. He is accused of ignoring one woman’s pleas to stop raping her in an assault that left her bleeding and in pain.
He is also alleged to have orally raped another woman as he told her: “Oh come on, don’t be a spoilsport.” Brand faces three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999 to 2009. He denies all the charges. Wearing a black pinstripe suit, white shirt and a necktie, Brand stood in the dock at Southwark crown court in London on Wednesday as the prosecution opened its case.
The prosector, Riel Karmy-Jones KC, told jurors: “The circumstances of the offending were as wide and as varied as the defendant’s career. Offending took place in a number of locations: a hotel room, workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at his home address. Regardless of who they were and what they said or did, Russell Brand was not deterred.
He could be nice when he wanted to be – funny undoubtedly, charming, likeble even when he wanted something in return but then demanding, entitled, a flirt with a huge sexual appetite, childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met. The court heard the earliest allegation dated back to the Labour party conference in Bournemouth in 1999, when Brand was not yet famous. He allegedly raped a woman at a hotel after meeting her at a fringe event where he was performing.
He denied the allegation in a prepared statement to police, saying he had had sexual encounters in countless locations and scenarios, often with people he had just met. Brand’s celebrity status was growing by the time of the second allegation in 2001. The woman was working at MTV when she offered to show Brand to the toilets where he allegedly indecently assaulted her.
Brand is accused of grabbing the woman by the forearm and trying to pull her into the male toilets. He had what she described as a desperate, wild-eyed look on his face, as he said: “Please, please come in – oh go on.” She was shocked and mentioned what had happened when she returned from the toilet but never formally reported it. The third woman had attended a friend’s birthday at a bar in Soho in London in 2004 when Brand sexually assaulted her by grabbing and squeezing her breasts with a “big, weird grin” on his face.
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