By Sam Tobin
LONDON, Oct 15 (Reuters) – A woman who alleges British actor and comedian Russell Brand raped her more than 25 years ago told jurors on Thursday that she found him “frightening”, angrily rejecting his lawyer’s suggestions that they had had consensual sex.
Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and the former husband of US singer Katy Perry, is on trial accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women between 1999 and 2009.
The 51-year-old denies the allegations and told police after his arrest that he had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity.
Prosecutors on Wednesday described him as a ruthless sexual predator as his career progressed from stand-up comedy to becoming a TV presenter and later a Hollywood movie star.
WOMAN SAYS SHE DID NOT THINK SHE WOULD BE BELIEVED
On the second day of his trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court, a woman said Brand raped her in her room after meeting at a fringe event during the 1999 Labour Party conference.
“We were just there for him to abuse and consent was irrelevant,” she told the jury.
She said she had thought Brand was gay and invited him back to her room to continue their conversation, saying she felt “sexually safe with him”. But, she added, she later found him “frightening … menacing”.
Brand’s lawyer Ian Winter suggested that she “fell under his spell”, which the woman rejected.
Winter asked: “You didn’t struggle, did you?” She replied: “I didn’t struggle, no, I didn’t. I couldn’t struggle, I couldn’t breathe.”
When Winter suggested she had not said “no” out loud, the woman said: “I did say ‘no’ … You are trying to put things in my head here. I know he raped me, I said I don’t want this.”
Winter asked the woman why she did not report the alleged rape to the police at the time, to which she replied: “I was ashamed. I didn’t think anybody would believe me, this is 1999.”
‘I DIDN’T CONSENT’
In a police interview played to the jury earlier on Thursday, the woman also said she “found his body quite snake-like … it made me feel sick if I’m being honest”.
The woman also said a 2023 documentary, which made allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand, was what prompted her to contact police.
She told the jury that she felt guilty hearing about other allegations against Brand, becoming emotional as she said: “Had I come forward, would it have stopped?”
At the conclusion of her evidence, she said: “I can 100% tell you, on everything I hold dear, that I didn’t consent.”
TRIAL DUE TO LAST SIX WEEKS
Brand is alleged to have tried to drag a woman into a toilet cubicle at MTV Europe where she worked in 2001 and separately to have orally raped a woman in a toilet cubicle in a bar in 2004.
He is also charged with indecently assaulting a woman in 2004 or 2005, anally raping a fifth complainant after they had consensual sex at his home in 2009, and later that same year sexually assaulting a woman who worked for Channel 4.
All six complainants, who are legally entitled to lifelong anonymity, came forward after the 2023 documentary, Judge Joel Bennathan told jurors on Thursday.
He said the women whose allegations were featured in the documentary were not part of the trial and their accusations had not been tested in court.
He added: “The defence may suggest the programme caused the complainants, or at least some of them, to revisit historic sexual events and in their memories twist them from the consensual acts they were to the crimes they now allege.”
The trial is expected to last around six weeks.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin;Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne)
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