Complainant describes message exchange after alleged assault
Jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London have been played a recorded police interview with a woman who says Russell Brand raped her at his house in 2009. She told detectives she had not agreed to anal sex and had consented only to vaginal intercourse. The court also heard that she later wrote to him saying he had treated her like an animal, and that he replied at once with an apology.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
In her account, the pair became acquainted in 2009 when she attended one of his comedy performances at Hammersmith Apollo. Although she was seeing someone else at the time, she visited his dressing room and carried out a sex act on him. She said their following encounter happened at his residence, and it was there, she claims, that the sex was non-consensual. When the detective asked whether anal sex had ever been talked about, she said it had not.[S1]
She described receiving an unexpected text from Brand about six months afterwards in which he said he wanted to push her further. She said she asked him why he was messaging her at all, and that he answered by calling her dirty and repeating that he wanted to push her further. Upset, she did not reply immediately; she then wrote that he had pushed her far enough and had treated her like an animal. His apology, she said, came straight back.[S1]
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Defence questions her decision to go to his home
Under cross-examination, defence barrister Ian Winter KC put it to her that she had made clear she went to Brand's house intending to have sex with him while knowing his reputation. She agreed that was correct and said she wanted to acknowledge that she had chosen to go there. She also told the court she had drunk a couple of glasses of alcohol at home while getting ready and another glass at a restaurant while waiting for his driver on the day of the alleged rape.[S1]
The court heard that he required her to shower and brush her teeth before sex. Winter suggested this was because Brand disliked the smell of alcohol given his sobriety, but the woman said the reason was that he did not like the smell of her hair. Pressed on the alleged rape, Winter suggested she had vaginal sex with a condom and that the encounter ended with her agreeing to anal sex. She rejected that, saying she did not consent at the time.[S1]
She told the court the proceedings were about alleged criminal conduct, not about her own morals, that she had consented only to vaginal intercourse, and that afterwards he carried on as if nothing had occurred. She cried as she concluded her testimony. Brand, 51, denies three rape counts, three sexual assault counts and one indecent assault count, and maintains he has never engaged in sexual activity without consent. The allegations stretch across a decade, 1999 to 2009, and involve six women. The trial continues.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
