The jury in Russell Brand’s rape and sexual assault trial began deliberations Tuesday, Nov. 3, after a judge spent the morning reviewing the case to them.
Before the jury was sent off, Judge Joel Bennathan went back over most of the evidence presented during the trial. While Bennathan said he would “miss out some witness altogether,” he would aim to “pick out the witnesses who seem to be the most significant” (per Sky news). After he finished his summary, Bennathan reminded the jury that could “only accept a unanimous verdict” from all 12 jurors.
Brand is facing three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault. (The latter was changed from “indecent assault” to “attempted indecent assault” during the trial.) The charges stem from accusations made by six women, and involve alleged incidents that took place between 1999 and 2009. Brand has pleaded not guilty to all seven charges.
During the three-week trial, which began in October, the jury heard from all six of Brand’s accusers, though their identities remain unknown due to protections afforded people who come forward with sexual assault allegations in the U.K. The claims ranged from one woman, who said Brand dragged her into a bathroom and orally raped her, to another woman who said she consented to having vaginal sex with Brand, before he allegedly anally raped her.
In her opening statement, lead prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones accused Brand of having “childlike” expectations that “his every desire should be met.” This led him, she argued, to treat women as “a means to an end — that end being groping them, sexually or indecently assaulting them, or vaginally, orally, or anally raping.”
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Brand, who took the stand in his own defense, acknowledged that he had dedicated a good chunk of his life to “reckless philandering,” and that he’d “misused” his fame “very, very selfishly.” But he insisted that all of his sexual encounters had been consensual, calling consent “fundamental, essential, necessary,” and, “in many ways ore important than sex itself.”
His lawyer, Ian Winter, meanwhile worked to cast doubt on the veracity of his accusers’ claims, arguing during his closing argument that none of the women “resisted or screamed or even tried to leave.” He also tried to suggest that Brand’s six accusers did act independently of each other, and were actually “fundamentally corrupted” by a 2023 documentary containing allegations of abuse against Brand. (Brand has denied those claims, too.)
