Russell Brand trial: 2023 allegations ‘poisoned the well of justice’, jury told

Allegations about Russell Brand’s sexual conduct in 2023 “poisoned the well of justice” and prompted women to come forward years later, his barrister said.Ian Winter KC said reporting in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and by The Times and The Sunday Times prompted the complainants to come forward, but had created a “fundamentally compromised” case against the comedian.Brand, 51, denies three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999.Bernard Gallacher and his daughter Laura arrived at Southwark Crown Court alongside Russell Brand on Monday (Ben Whitley/PA)PA WireDuring his closing speech at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, Mr Winter quoted 19th-century philosopher John Henry Newman and his description of an attempt to “poison the wells”.The barrister told jurors that journalists had “poisoned the well of justice” in Brand’s case, saying the women had been “drawn forth” by the 2023 allegations rather than independently deciding to report their own.He said: “They all came forward for reasons connected to the TV programme, not for reasons personable to themselves.”Mr Winter said the women were “not random, not independent”, adding that they had each been “thoroughly contaminated” by the documentary.Read MoreOf the allegations, he said that the women may “think it now”, but this does not “reflect what they were actually thinking back then”.He added: “That is the precise consequence of the poisoning of the well.”Mr Winter also argued that the passage of time had created another problem for the case, describing the delay between the alleged offences and reports to police as “monstrous”.He said: “Delay makes it impossible to litigate the issues in the way you would if it wasn’t in the way.”Mr Winter added that delay “does something particularly savage in a case where it’s one person’s word against another person’s word.”He told jurors they were dealing with a “quagmire of doubt and inaccurate recollection”.On the first complainant, who alleges rape during the Labour Party conference, Mr Winter said: “She fancied him, she invited him back to her tiny bedsit and she consented to the sex that took place there.”He referred to the woman keeping a photograph of Brand blowing her a kiss, telling jurors: “Her conduct is completely inconsistent with the allegation she has made for the first time 24 years later.”Mr Winter also challenged part of her recollection in which she described Brand wearing “budgie smugglers” and jumping around “like an ostrich”, telling jurors that photographs did not show him in his underwear.He said: “The details are what makes you sure – when they add up, they make you sure; when they don’t, they are the doubt.”Addressing an allegation of attempted indecent assault at MTV’s offices in central London in 2001, Mr Winter said Brand stopped when the woman refused to go into a bathroom with him.The barrister said: “He accepted the ‘no’, so he didn’t attempt to assault her into the bathroom, he obviously wanted to go into the bathroom for consensual sex.”Brand denies seven charges (Ben Whitley/PA)PA WireHe added: “When she said ‘no’ and put her foot down and pulled away, he accepted that it would go no further.”Mr Winter said the woman now believed she could have been assaulted as “the well has been poisoned”.Brand “genuinely believed” the women were consenting which is why he was described as acting normally, the barrister said.Mr Winter said there is a “curious feature” to the evidence from the complainants, adding: “They have all given evidence that Mr Brand’s behaviour was normal either during and/or after the incidents.”He added: “That, we suggest, is something that simply cannot have occurred if he is guilty.”The barrister said the fact he behaved normally showed Brand believed they had consented.He added: “He couldn’t have been behaving normally if he knew they were not.“He obviously genuinely believed that they were consenting because that’s the only thing that would explain why his behaviour was normal.”Mr Winter added that there is “no evidence he is some sort of psychopath who rapes people and thinks it’s normal”.A closing statement was made by Brand’s defence (James Manning/PA)PA WireHe also told jurors: “What matters is he (Brand) had an immense amount of sex and none of it was unlawful.”He added: “Disgusting, distasteful, immoral, who cares?“It’s irrelevant to your consideration.”Mr Winter put to jurors: “Why is it that only three rapes in 10 years?”The barrister also pointed to the evidence of Mr Brand’s wife, adding: “She fell in love with that man in full knowledge of what he was doing.“She married him, she bore him three children.”He added that she would not have done so if Brand was “guilty as charged”.The barrister said the prosecution had reached for Brand’s 2007 memoir My Booky Wook in a “bid of desperation”.Mr Winter said it was a “funny book” containing jokes, highlighting a passage alongside a childhood photograph in which Brand wrote: “This is the exact moment when I decided to act gay to attract girls.”The barrister added: “It was so obviously a joke…“The joke is that it didn’t work.”Mr Winter said the 2023 allegations against Brand had had a “truly devastating effect” on him, reminding jurors of the defendant’s recounting of being blocked from visiting his baby son when he was having open heart surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.Mr Winter said: “That tells you the extent to which public opinion has been perverted and corrupted.”Brand sat upright and looked straight ahead in the dock during his barrister’s closing speech.He had arrived at court on Monday morning accompanied by his wife Laura Gallacher and her father, Ryder Cup-winning golfer Bernard Gallacher, 77.