Brand’s lawyer challenges media role in closing speech at rape trial

Russell Brand’s lawyer has urged a jury to find him not guilty, arguing that media reporting had influenced the women accusing him of rape and sexual assault.

In his closing speech at Southwark Crown Court on Monday 2 November, Ian Winter KC said a 2023 Channel 4 documentary and reporting by The Times and The Sunday Times had prompted the women to make criminal allegations years after the alleged events. He accused journalists of having “poisoned the well of justice”.

Brand, 51, denies three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of attempted indecent assault. The charges concern six women and alleged events between 1999 and 2009.

The prosecution disputes Winter’s account of the reporting’s influence. In her closing speech on 30 October, prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC said the women had come forward after realising they were not alone, rather than being led to reinterpret their experiences by the documentary. Prosecutors say the women separately went to police after it was broadcast.

Winter also questioned why none of the allegations had come to light during the MeToo movement. But the court heard that one complainant had spoken to people close to her long before the documentary. Her sister said the woman told her the morning after an alleged incident in 2004 that Brand had tried to assault her.

Winter had asked the complainant why she did not say she had been raped until after the 2023 reporting. She replied: “I didn’t want people to judge me … I felt ashamed.”

In his closing speech, Winter asked jurors to distinguish between rude or unkind behaviour and sex without consent. The judge sent the jury home after the defence finished; he was expected to begin his summing up the following morning.