Russell Brand's defense lawyer told jurors Monday that a 2023 Channel 4 documentary and newspaper stories tainted the rape case against the comedian by pushing women to make criminal allegations years after the events.
Ian Winter KC, delivering his closing speech at Southwark Crown Court, said the Dispatches program and reports in the Times and Sunday Times led people who had never thought it appropriate to go to police to do so, very many years later.
Brand faces seven counts: three of rape, three of sexual assault and one of attempted indecent assault.
Winter argued the six complainants were not random and had been thoroughly contaminated by the program. He reminded jurors that the judge had directed them the documentary was one-sided and dramatically produced, and said no journalist spoke to Brand about it except to protect against defamation risk after it was made.
Consent and credibility
Winter told jurors that living a highly promiscuous life is lawful, and asked whether they could be sure that, of the many women who willingly had sex with Brand, he raped just three.
He called it a curious feature of the case that Brand genuinely believed the women were consenting, and said there was no evidence he was a psychopath who rapes people and considers it normal.
Addressing an allegation dating to 1999, Winter noted that Brand left the woman his real email address, arguing that rapists do not hand out their email, leave photographs or kiss their victims goodbye.
He left her his actual email address. Rapists do not give out their email address
Ian Winter KC, Russell Brand's defense barrister
The barrister acknowledged that Brand had an immense amount of sex and that his conduct might be called disgusting or immoral, but said none of it was unlawful. Treating women unkindly or behaving rudely, he said, is not a crime.
MeToo and the comedy
Winter also questioned why none of the women came forward during the heavily publicized MeToo movement, when many were reconsidering experiences with famous people.
How is it that not one of them thought what happened to them involved a crime during the MeToo movement?
Ian Winter KC, Russell Brand's defense barrister
He described Brand's stand-up comedy as radical and different for its era, saying Brand was honest on stage about the consensual sex he was having.
Family and fallout
Winter told jurors that the documentary had a devastating effect on Brand, citing a hospital's refusal to let him visit the bedside of his baby son after life-saving open heart surgery. Brand had earlier testified that Great Ormond Street Hospital would not let him stay because of material published about him.
Winter pointed to testimony from Brand's wife, Laura, saying she married him and had three children with full knowledge of his behavior, and would not have done so if he were guilty. Brand arrived at court with Laura and her father, former professional golfer Bernard Gallacher.
