Russell Brand’s lawyer has told the jury there is “no evidence” that the comedian is “some kind of psychopath who rapes people and thinks it’s normal” in his closing argument.
“The fact he behaved normally during and after all of those ‘rapes’ tells you what you need to know. He believed they were all consenting,” said Ian Winter KC, defending Brand, per Sky News. “You would have to be a psychopath to be raping someone and asking them if they were enjoying it at the same time.”
Winter pointed out that Brand had left his email addresses and photographs and tried to kiss one of the complainants goodbye when he left. “Rapists do not leave their address,” he said. “Rapists do not leave their photographs.”
Brand has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault. The alleged incidents occurred between 1999 and 2009.
Following a three-week trial, both sides put forward their closing arguments this week, with the prosecution calling the comedian’s defense “a lot of half-truths” that were “spun into lies.”
As part of his closing statement the lawyer also rounded on the 2023 Channel 4 documentary that alleged Brand was a serial abuser as part of a joint investigation with The Sunday Times of London. The documentary featured five women who accused Brand of “rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse.” He issued a strong denial ahead of the broadcast.
One of the complainants in the current court case, who claims Brand anally raped her following consensual sex in 2009, said in her evidence she had watched the documentary.
“One wonders what her evidence would have been if she’d not seen the program,” the lawyer asked. “There is nothing random at all about these people coming forward… They have all come forward because they have been brought at the invitation of that program.”
“They are all, we say, thoroughly contaminated by the program. The very existence of them as complainants is fundamentally corrupted by that program and publicity and [that] renders it fundamentally unfair.”
In his closing statement, Brand’s defense lawyer called the Channel 4 documentary “one-sided” and “produced in a dramatic manner” and was reportedly scathing of it claiming to be a documentary. Winter said that Brand had not spoken to any of the journalists involved in the 90-minute program and had only been offered a “right of reply” – where a journalist typically contacts a subject of a story to detail the allegations being made against them and offer them a chance to respond – in order to “protect their defamation risk.”
He added that the allegations in the documentary had never been tested in court and that the journalists had “poisoned the well of justice” by prompting the plaintiffs to come forward.
Winter also accused the prosecution of “desperation” after they used Brand’s 2007 memoir “My Booky Wook” as “evidence.” Brand was cross-examined over passages in the book in which he claimed to pretend to be gay to gain women’s trust.
“In 2007 he wrote a funny book, ‘My Booky Wook,’ it contains some jokes,” the lawyer said. He then said the jury were being asked to “take what he wrote eight years after the event and somehow use it as evidence of what he was doing in 1999″.
Winter also urged the jury to disregard Brand’s “highly promiscuous” lifestyle when deciding on a verdict, saying “put out of your mind any distaste you may feel for the way he lived his life… That way of living is not criminal.”
Instead, he said: “Do what the journalists totally failed to do, put all condemnation completely out of the mind and apply pure, cold logic to the question: ‘Are we sure on the evidence we have seen [Brand] did do what is alleged?’”
“Disgusting, distasteful, immoral, who cares? It’s irrelevant to your consideration.”
He added: “Even being manipulative in the pursuit of consensual sex is completely lawful.”
“Brand is innocent,” the lawyer told the court.
