Russell Brand 'controlled and gaslit women', court hears

Russell Brand carried out rapes and sexual assaults while treating women as a "disposable commodity" and a "means to an end", his trial has heard.

Mr Brand, 51, faces allegations that he attacked women in a hotel room, at his luxury London home, in their workplaces, and in a Soho bar toilet.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC told Southwark Crown Court Mr Brand liked to exercise "control" over the women, and felt "disdain" towards them as he pursued his goal of sleeping with 5,000 women.

She pointed jurors to his 2007 book, where he discussed his "birthright orgasm", and a 2017 interview Mr Brand gave when he referred to women as "amusements" in a "playground of orgasms".

Ms Karmy-Jones suggested Mr Brand's attitude to the women's accusations was "why on earth are they complaining about things that were plainly so trivial?".

And she told the court in her closing speech to Mr Brand's trial: "Women as a whole were disposable who didn't matter to him.

"He didn't even need to know their names. They were just a means to an end.

"As he said in a 2017 interview, they were the amusements in what he described as his playground of orgasms.

"We suggest you will be satisfied so you are sure that the six complainants told you the truth, not an invented truth, not a reimagined truth, but the real truth of what happened to them.

"We invite you to find him guilty on all counts."

Mr Brand faces three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one allegation of attempted indecent assault.

One of his accusers was a 21-year-old fan when she met Mr Brand after watching him perform stand-up comedy at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009.

She told the court she willingly had a threesome with Mr Brand backstage on the night of the performance, then went to his Hampstead home a few days later to have sex.

But she told jurors Mr Brand forced her to shower and brush her teeth before sex, then during their time in bed he forced her into anal sex.

Ms Karmy-Jones suggested today that Mr Brand had been "getting off on the control" when he forced the young woman to strip and shower while he watched.

"She had showered before, she had put her make-up on, she had just tried to make herself pretty and he just shoved her in the shower," she said.

"He stood and stared at her while she stripped down and went in.

"It was like he was administering her - was it the control of the situation that he was getting off on?"

The alleged victim conceded in court that she had not "painted myself in a good light" as she gave evidence of cheating on her boyfriend during the encounter at the Apollo, then knowing she was going to have sex when she later headed to Mr Brand’s house.

But Ms Karmy-Jones told the jury they could assess the woman as "completely honest", who had been "fair" to Mr Brand when she insisted that their sex at first - though it "wasn't nice and wasn't done to pleasure her" - had been consensual.

The prosecutor said: "She said it felt like he could have been f****** a hole.

"In effect, she said it could have been anyone or anything.

"But she doesn't suggest it wasn't consensual."

But the woman went on to tell the court that Brand had "flipped her over" and started to have painful anal sex without consent and without a condom.

He only cared about his "birthright orgasm" and ignored her pleas for him to stop, the prosecutor said, adding that she was "just another number to add to his 5,000 notches which he was marking up".

Ms Karmy-Jones said: "She did say no, she did say stop, but he did not."

During his evidence on Wednesday, Mr Brand said consent during sex is "fundamental" and suggested to him it is "more important that the sex itself".

But Ms Karmy-Jones said in her closing speech: "Members of the jury, taking into account what you have heard in this trial, does that ring true as something Mr Brand believed during this period of time?"

She went on to quote Mr Brand's own words from his 2007 book, My Booky Wook, when he wrote: "If I want something - whether it's a job or a woman - I will determinedly, resolutely, remove anything that's in the way, until I possess the object of my desire."

Ms Karmy-Jones said: "A lack of consent, no problem for Mr Brand, just an obstacle he would have to remove, or perhaps ignore."

Turning to one of the other allegations, that Mr Brand had thrust his head into a female Channel 4 worker's lap in 2009 when she had been forced to give him a massage, Ms Karmy-Jones asked the jury to remember Mr Brand himself saying he was "staggeringly famous" at that time.

She said: "The defendant was rampant in his desire to have sexual contact whenever he wanted, whenever he pleased."

She asked the jury to consider how they would feel being forced to massage a powerful man in their workplace, and added: "Women, particularly subservient women, were simply a disposable commodity to him."

This morning, Ms Karmy-Jones accused Mr Brand of gaslighting the women after attacking them by giving them his email address or phone number and pretending nothing had happened.

She said the six women, who do not know each other, have been "haunted for years" by their experiences, with one slipping into alcoholism and several saying they blamed themselves and were afraid to speak out.

Describing Mr Brand's alleged demeanour, she said: "His eyes changed, he snapped, from charming to frightening to nasty."

She said they are "six women who have nothing to gain, who have not sought the limelight, who have not looked out for some form of publicity, who have not taken part in a documentary, not made claims for compensation".

She added: "There is no benefit to them, apart from perhaps some closure by coming before you and telling you their accounts of what happened to them so long ago."

Mr Brand is accused of trying to indecently assault an MTV worker by pulling her into a toilet in 2001, forcing himself on another MTV worker in a Soho bar toilet during a party in 2004, kissing and groping a radio worker in 2005 in a corridor, and raping a woman in a hotel room at the 1999 Labour Party conference.

Mr Brand denies all the charges.

His barrister, Ian Winter KC, is due to deliver his closing speech on Monday.

The trial continues.

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