By Michael Holden
LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) – British comedian and actor Russell Brand said on Wednesday that friends and colleagues turned against him after allegations of sex crimes were made against him, before telling a jury in a London court that consent was fundamental.
Brand, once a regular figure on British television and star of a number of Hollywood movies, is on trial accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and an attempted indecent assault involving six women between 1999 and 2009.
The 51-year-old former husband of US singer Katy Perry denies all the allegations.
Appearing in the witness box in the third week of his trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court, Brand said “no” loudly and clearly when his lawyer asked him if he had committed any of the alleged crimes.
The jury has previously been told how all the complainants came forward to detectives after a documentary was broadcast in 2023 along with a number of newspaper articles in which anonymous allegations were made by other women who are not involved in the trial.
Brand, wearing a black suit with an open-neck white shirt and a loose black tie, said the impact had been “devastating” as friends turned their backs on him and not a single person would give evidence on his behalf.
Asked by his lawyer Ian Winter if they would “touch you with a bargepole”, he replied: “No.”
‘CONSENT IS FUNDAMENTAL’, BRAND SAYS
As Brand described how his public image had grown over time, he said his marriage with Katy Perry in 2010 had brought him “staggering fame”. The couple split up 14 months later.
Prosecutors, who completed their case against him earlier on Wednesday, have described Brand as a sexual predator.
They said Brand raped a woman after meeting her at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in 1999, forced a woman to give him oral sex in toilets at a London bar in 2004, and had molested another woman at a radio station in 2004 or 2005.
He is also accused of trying to pull a woman into the male toilets at MTV Europe, in London, where she was working in 2001, and that in 2009 he anally raped a woman who had agreed to consensual sex at his home.
The final allegation is that he assaulted a woman who was working at the Channel 4 TV station where they were involved in a recording project.
Describing the impact of the allegations against him, Brand said that he had been barred from the hospital where his son was receiving open heart surgery after the documentary was broadcast.
“My entire life has been consumed by these events, these allegations, these accusations, the impact of these allegations and accusations,” he said. “I have devoted myself to these matters.”
Brand said the first complainant had willingly had sex with him.
“Consent is fundamental, essential, necessary and indeed more important than sex itself,” he said.
The trial continues.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Sam Tobin, Alexandra Hudson)
