Media Firms Bet Big as Brand Trial Draws 50 Journalists

Russell Brand’s criminal trial at Southwark crown court has drawn an international media operation whose scale rivals the allegations themselves. At least 20 journalists are crammed into court 3 each day, with roughly 30 more watching on a screen in another courtroom in the building, and some accessing proceedings remotely via the CVP link. At least five daily podcasts are covering the trial, and several journalists from the same outlets have been angling to get into court.

That level of attention reflects the commercial stakes surrounding a figure whose public profile has shifted markedly. Brand, 51, now lives in the United States with his wife, Laura, and their children, and the case has received widespread international coverage, including in the US. He has arrived at court each morning to a large crowd of photographers and journalists from across the world, accompanied by his wife on three of the five days the case has been sitting. His security guard and members of his entourage have sat in the public gallery daily.

Brand has also leaned on a carefully maintained public image as he faces the proceedings. Arriving at Southwark crown court on Friday in his signature dark suit, cross necklace and long scarf, he told reporters: “Obviously it’s an extraordinary and stressful situation, but it is also an exploration of truth and justice and, as I’ve said before, I pray for everybody involved.” He added: “It’s in a way very, very sad but hopefully it can bring about some conclusions that are beneficial.” In court, he has sat upright with his hands in his lap, appearing to listen intently, occasionally clutching prayer beads; journalists in the press gallery, directly behind the glass dock, have caught glimpses of his reflection as he stares ahead.

The trial itself began with jury selection on Monday, and the prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC opened the case on Wednesday. She told the court that Brand faces three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999 to 2009. He denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty. Karmy-Jones described him as a ruthless, calculated and manipulative predator with an “indiscriminate and voracious” desire for sexual contact, arguing that his methods varied and that women were just a means to an end for him. “Sometimes he might tell women what they wanted to hear, be nice, be kind. Sometimes he might have appeared interested in their cause, sometimes he might even have made sexual advances within minutes of meeting them, identified someone young and impressionable where he was performing, but every time he had identified his target, he was intent on trying to fulfil his sexual desire,” she said.

The court has so far heard from two of the six complainants, both giving evidence from behind a screen, a measure the trial judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, told the jury was quite standard: “Don’t hold it against anyone.” The earliest allegation dates to a fringe cabaret show at the 1999 Labour party conference in Bournemouth, where the woman says Brand raped her. She broke down in tears in the witness box on Thursday, describing him as “monster-like” when he pushed her on to a bed in a hotel room in an attack that left her feeling as if she couldn’t breathe. “I was like a zombie on the bed. All I could think was he’s inside me and the quicker the better,” she said. The second complainant, who was working for MTV at the time, told the court on Friday that Brand became a “wild-eyed maniac” when he tried to drag her into a men’s toilets for a sexual encounter. She said she “wrenched” herself free, adding: “I emerged relatively unscathed. He didn’t manage to rape me.”

The defence has challenged both accounts. In prepared statements from police interviews, Brand denied all the allegations, saying he had never engaged in nonconsensual sexual activity and suggesting some accounts may have been reinvented or imagined after a 2023 documentary about his alleged sexual misconduct. His defence barrister, Ian Winter KC, suggested to the first complainant that Brand was a “very young-looking boy” and that there was “no power imbalance” during the alleged 1999 encounter. To the second, he suggested Brand had “invited” her into the toilet for a consensual encounter, describing it as a “short-lived, very, very minor incident”.

The trial continues, and the media operation surrounding it shows no sign of shrinking.