Russell Brand trial hears chilling allegations from women accusing him of rape and sexual assault

Russell Brand trial hears chilling allegations from women accusing him of rape and sexual assault WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one allegation of indecent assault, relating to six women between 1999 and 2009 Six women have accused Russell Brand of raping and sexually assaulting them, giving evidence across six days of hearings at his Southwark Crown Court trial. Alleged victims claim Brand switched suddenly after appearing charming, forced them into sexual activity in a toilet, a hotel room, workplace corridors, and his bedroom, and acting as if nothing had happened after the attacks. Brand has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one allegation of indecent assault, relating to six women between 1999 and 2009. Jurors have been told the end of the prosecution is expected early next week, to be followed by Brand’s defence case. In her opening remarks to the jury, prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC said Brand, now 51, gave prepared statements when he was questioned by police. Brand, who has turned to podcasting in recent years, has sat rigidly and without emotion in the dock as his trial has unfolded over the last week and a half. His wife, Laura Gallacher, is one of a set of supporters who have attended every day of the evidence so far. Below, we've broken down what the court has heard so far in relation to the six alleged victims. Brand 'forced woman to take pictures then raped her' after Labour Party conference event A woman who attended the 1999 Labour Party Conference says Brand raped her in a hotel room after she had watched him perform at a fringe event. She said Brand showed interest in her as they chatted after the event, and she invited him to her room to continue the conversation, believing he was gay and not posing a threat. She said after going to the bathroom when getting back to the room, she returned to find Brand had taken his clothes off. She said: "I remember coming out the toilet. He was practically naked. There wasn't much left to the imagination. I remember him prancing around and being silly. I remember asking why he had his clothes off and he said it's normal. He does that at home, he gets hot. "I found his body quite snake like and disgusting. It made me feel sick if I'm honest. I remember him being like an ostrich, like a bird. He's very leggy, but I wasn't laughing. I just remember him jumping up and down being silly. He was literally kicking his legs up, almost Fawlty Towers Basil Fawlty-esque." She told the court Brand asked her to take pictures of him on her camera. She told the court: "I took pictures of him on my camera – he made me take them. I was frightened. I remember feeling ‘what on earth have I got myself into’ – and then he did rape me." The woman said Brand's demeanour changed just before the alleged rape. She said: "He just changed, suddenly from this camp and friendly and effeminate to monster-like. I felt frightened. He's half-naked and while I'm naive I didn't think at that point his intentions were good. He was just dark and arrogant and performing. He was demanding like he was the centre of the show. It was like he was back on his stage. He wasn't the person I was chatting to - 100% not that person." She alleges Brand pushed her on to the bed, removed some of her clothing, and raped her. She said Brand told her 'It's normal, enjoy it' during the attack while she was "like a zombie on the bed." The complainant claimed when the alleged attack ended at some point after midnight, Brand got off her and claimed he had remembered he needed to go see his mum. She said Brand told her she would "love his mum and she would love me". She then said Brand wrote down his email "without me asking" and at that point she was "just willing him to go." She claims Brand told her 'don't worry, I get tested regularly, I go to the clinic a lot, I don't have any disease.' Woman 'grabbed and pulled into MTV office toilet' An MTV worker gave evidence that Brand tried to drag her into a toilet at one of the company's offices in 2001. She had struck up a friendly conversation with Brand over his “I am Spartacus” T-shirt, but said he then turned into a “wild-eyed maniac” as he grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her into the toilet. She claimed Brand "started to plead almost, 'go on, go on, come in!'." She added: "He grabbed my forearm and was leaning on the door. He was quite forceful in grip. I am pulling back into the corridor. He's trying to pull me back in. By this time he had what I would call quite a wild look in his eyes. I said I'm not going in there with you. I think I might have called him an idiot or words to that effect. It lasted probably about 20 seconds, maybe less." The woman said she wrenched herself free, and she reported what she says happened to colleagues, who she says told her: "Well, he's crazy." But she said she never reported the incident to bosses. She told the court: "The reason that I didn't was because I was scared. I got away, I thought it would be my word against him. He was a big asset to MTV. I've got a mortgage to pay so whats the point in making life hard for myself?" She later reported the incident to police after watching a Channel 4 programme about Brand, saying: "I watched the Channel 4 documentary and it came back to me and I thought 'this is not just me'. I thought about it and thought about it more and thought I have managed to get away thanks to my own strength. It could have been very different. Given what could have happened I thought it was the right thing to do to come forward to the police." Brand's lawyer, Ian Winter KC, challenged her suggesting she only came forward after watching the show and deciding Brand had been trying to rape her rather than pull her in for a consensual encounter. She said: "I don't think it's quite as straight-forward as that. It would have been my word against his. I came away relatively unscathed. He didn't manage to rape me. I managed to get myself out from the situation." Brand 'groped woman in bar then forced her to perform oral sex in toilet' Brand is accused of groping a woman during a birthday party at a Soho bar, then dragging her to the toilet and forcing her to perform oral sex on him. The woman said she had been talking to the TV presenter at the bar for less than a minute when he “lunged” forward and grabbed hold of her breasts. “He literally just grabbed my boobs, out of nowhere, just in the middle of a conversation and I just remember this weird, maniacal grin, looming in front of me as he just grabbed my boobs," she said. “I was completely in shock and was like, ‘what the hell are you doing? I’ve literally just met you’. Then literally he grabbed my arm and dragged me into the toilets.” She alleges Brand locked the door, jumped on top of a toilet seat lid, unzipped his trousers, and forced her into oral sex, saying “don’t be a spoilsport” when she appeared unwilling. The woman, who was working for MTV at the time, claimed Brand was "grinning like a clown" during the encounter. She recalled thinking: “Survival tried to kick in: ‘do what he says then you’re out of here and it’s done.’” She told the jury she was “dazed” and in shock afterwards, and remembers a man knocking on the toilet door saying: "Are you ok?". She told police: "Russell just sort of casually walked out and unlocked it and I just walked out in a daze. I remember this really, really clearly - he turned to me and went 'Oh, I guess we should swap numbers now', like it was just all normal, like he hadn't just forced me to do that." She said she tried to find a friend at the bar but was ushered into the back of a car with Brand, where he "had his penis out again" while two others sat in the front. She claimed he told her 'Com on, com on, suck it', saying: "I was just like 'no'. He took 'no' for an answer then." Brand’s barrister suggested the woman had been excited to meet the TV star and had willingly gone into the toilet with him, and he argued that the encounter was cut short because of the “disgusting” state of the flooded toilets. When Mr Winter asked if she had been looking forward to meeting Brand that night, she said: "I wasn't extremely excited. I wasn't a giddy schoolgirl." She added that she was "tipsy" but "wasn't paralytic" at the time, claiming to have had "six or seven" vodka, lime and sodas. Mr Winter suggested she may have gone into the toilet with Brand voluntarily, to which she replied: "I don't agree. I was dragged there against my will." 'Rough and sloppy kisses' after Brand 'leapt on woman in radio station' An employee of a radio station in London told the court she was pinned against a wall, groped, and subjected to “sloppy” kisses by Brand. She recalled the comedian, then a rising star on Channel 4’s Big Brother’s Big Mouth, saying “aye, aye” as she emerged in front of him from a radio studio. The woman said she was alone in a room when the incident occurred, telling the court: "I literally opened the door and I’m standing in the space, very cramped, and he’s just leapt on me.” She added: “It was rough, it was very, very rough. It was hard, I would say that his whole body was pressed against me, the kisses were hard and sloppy, going down my neck The reason I used the word frenzied is because it was just, it was violent.” The woman said she looked to Brand’s entourage to help but no one intervened, and eventually she pushed him away and said, “f*** off”. She added that she saw Brand laugh, and defended her decision not to report the incident to her managers at the time. “There was a culture of fear”, she said, recalling the atmosphere at the time as “people pleasing”. “Russell Brand was an A-lister star, it was Big Brother, people were watching it, we all watched it," she said. She added that she believes her line manager at the time would have likely responded “you’re lucky” if she had recounted the incident. Brand’s legal team suggested that the woman had only come up with the allegation against Brand after seeing sexual misconduct allegations being levelled against him in a 2023 Dispatches documentary. Woman told to 'clear up her mess after being raped at Brand's home' Brand is accused of raping a 21-year-old fan a few days after they met at his 2009 stand-up comedy show at the Hammersmith Apollo in west London. The woman said Brand invited her and two other women backstage, and she willingly engaged in a threesome with the star. She later texted with Brand and agreed to go to his Hampstead townhouse for what she thought would be consensual sex. But the woman said the encounter turned odd when Brand forced her to shower and brush her teeth after she arrived at his home, claiming her hair smelled 'funny'. She said they began to have consensual sex but she "felt really uncomfortable" after being told to shower and brush her teeth. However, she said that during intercourse, Brand removed the condom and began to have anal sex without seeking consent. She said she struggled to breathe and repeatedly told Brand: "Can you stop, can you stop, can you stop?" The woman said Brand “looked horrified” after the alleged rape, but while she thought he was going to apologise he instead told her to “clear up the mess that you’ve made”, the court heard. The woman added: “The thing that I have really struggled with is… that what he said to me after, it really affected me because I did it… exactly what he said. ‘Clear up the mess you’ve made’, I did it and I don’t know why.” She claimed she used his black toilet roll to clean her blood from his "enormous" bed while he told her he was stepping out to take a phone call. The woman said she had to “sit on an ice cube tray” because she was “in so much pain” after the alleged attack. She added: “It was one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever gone through.” The woman said that for “years” she told the story as though she “shouldn’t have gone”, as though it was her fault. She told her parents what had happened and was referred for therapy by a sexual health clinic, which she attended after the incident. When it was suggested she was an “obsessed” fan who had agreed to the whole encounter, the woman repeatedly told the court: “I didn’t consent to what happened to me.” Brand was said to have turned "really nasty" following the encounter. A friend of the woman gave evidence over a videolink. The witness said her friend was “crying, really upset” when they met up after her encounter at Brand’s house, and she told her what had happened. The witness said: "I asked specifically ‘did you say no?’, and she said yes, lots of times.... She told me she was in a lot of pain – ‘he really f****** hurt me’. The court heard the woman who has accused Brand of rape told her the comedian turned “really nasty” at the end of the incident. Victim 'forced to massage Brand who put his head in her lap' The sixth woman alleged she was forced into giving Brand a massage, and that during it he put his head into her lap, leaning in so close she could feel his breath on her intimate parts. The Channel 4 worker said she was "repulsed" after being told that the only way Brand would carry on with a project in 2009 was if she gave him a massage. She sid she thought they were joking but she "saw by their faces they weren't joking". She told the court Brand said "come on then" after putting his head on her lap. She added that his left shoulder was leaning against her leg while his head was in her lap, saying: "it was quite elongated... it was a weird position for a massage to be in, that's for sure." "I could feel his breath against me," she recalled. She said she looked at two members of Brand's entourage, Jack Bayles and Gareth Roy, who were "shrugging" and gesturing to say "are you going to do it?". The woman said she thought at the time: "Oh my god, I have got to do this." "I was so repulsed by the situation and my automatic reaction was 'urgh, you're so bony'," she said. She added the Bayles and Roy "laughed" at what she said, but Brand "didn't laugh." The woman said Brand made a series of offensive comments, suggesting that he and Mr Roy had been “wanting to know: is it a girl or a boy?” She said Brand got up after she told him he was "bony" and the mood shifted in the room. She claimed Brand got up and went over to a glass of water with a calculator and said 'Ooh, I'm a calculator, look at me, look at me', pretending to make the calculator drink from the glass. She said: "It was just a bit of a charade, just a change of tune, and then he said, right are we going to get on with this… or not?” She said she reported the incident the following day to her line manager at Channel 4, and she believes it was passed on to the head of her department. The trial continues.