One was a high-profile defendant watched by more than 100 journalists. Another was an unknown man who preyed on a girl almost half his age. Their stories played out minutes apart, one entirely out of the spotlight
What is going on inside Russell Brand’s head as he arrives at court for the start of his rape trial? He sees the dozens of cameras and journalists lined outside Southwark crown court, many of whom have been waiting since before 7am, and he tells himself that the media are all against him. “It seems to me that they believe that I am guilty, and that this should be the rubber-stamping of the process of my destruction.”
He walks with his wife, Laura, and his bodyguard past the photographers, “clickering, clackering, snickering paparazzi, like locusts, peculiar concoctions, not fully humans”, and up into the court, where he is suddenly overwhelmed by “the presence of something very beautiful, grace”. “In a situation like I’m in, it’s impossible not to turn to God. Truth and justice are the only things that can save me,” he thinks.
In one of the early hearings, he also receives some words of support from a court security guard, “just some normal geezer, patting me down for weapons or sharps”, who whispers: “All right, Russell. The whole country’s behind you, mate. The whole country’s behind you.”
Brand takes solace from these words. “I felt very, very encouraged.”
I’m not a mind reader, so how do I know all this? Usually we know nothing about the thoughts of defendants in trials because they stay silent for the duration, but Brand finds it hard to stay quiet. At the start of his trial, he was putting out podcasts combining prayers with updates on how he was feeling about the experience. His broadcasts were joined by podcasts about the case from at least five media outlets, including the BBC, Sky and the Times, making this probably the most scrutinised rape trial in British legal history.
For much of it I was there, too, part of this pack of journalists, watching proceedings during the day, listening to the podcasts at night, particularly fascinated by Brand’s own updates, which he recorded alongside Laura, who attended court most days. Inexplicably, they have chosen to express their thoughts dressed in loosely belted dressing gowns, and Brand’s robe, troublingly, keeps flapping open to reveal his naked chest.
In the second mid-trial update, he and his wife compliment each other on the outfits they’ve picked to wear to court.
“You’ve looked absolutely beautiful and spectacular,” Brand says to Laura.
“That’s so kind. You’ve looked wonderful, too,” she replies, laughing.
View image in fullscreenIn another episode, they pray for people who are enduring difficult times. “We pray for all people that have suffered harms. May we experience deep, deep love,” he tells his listeners, before it seems to occur to him that members of the media may be tuning in. “There may be people watching to find mean things to say,” he says. “We pray for them, too.”
One hundred and eight journalists are here to cover the case. Are we all just trying to find mean things to say? And if not, why are we all peering so intently at the trial of a comedian and actor whose career has waned? What are we hoping to understand with this exhaustive focus on a case examining whether Brand raped or sexually assaulted half a dozen women over a 10-year period from 1999 to 2009?
People are fascinated by Brand, now 51, because he has been so unflinchingly frank about how he has used women for sex – in his books, in his comedy. For years, this was a core part of his appeal; many of the millions who listened to him and read what he had to say just laughed indulgently at his anecdotes about shagging women and treating them badly. His persona pre-empted criticism: if you weren’t smiling at him, it was because you had no sense of humour.
Alongside Brand, the era that spans my early adulthood looks set to go on trial – an era of rampant sexism masked as ironic laddishness, which made it so tricky to argue with because every insult was just a hilarious joke.
By now, anyone who has listened to the news, or scrolled on their phones over the last few weeks will be familiar with the charges against Brand made by six unconnected women: that he raped one of them at the Labour party conference in 1999, that he orally raped another in the toilet of a bar, that he attempted to drag a receptionist to a toilet at MTV, that he anally raped a woman who had gone to his home for consensual sex, that he pinned a radio employee against the wall and kissed her while a colleague laughed, that he placed his face in the groin of a television production worker and demanded a massage. Brand denies all seven charges – three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault.
As the trial begins, the journalists who have managed to secure a seat in court 3 are taking notes on laptops, trying to keep up with the complexities of the case. Whenever a particularly disturbing fact is revealed, about 30 journalists start typing in unison. It becomes very loud. When one witness notes how Brand “went from someone who was quite affable, jovial, and turned into a wild-eyed maniac”, it sounds like a tropical rainstorm drumming on a tin roof. Even the judge has remarked on the disruptive noise of the furious typing.
By day four, I am beginning to wonder what I can add to the collective thoughts of dozens of journalists and podcasters, and Brand himself, on this trial. So the following morning I turn left instead of right out of the tube, and make my way to a different rape case starting at another court, a 15-minute walk in the other direction.
This is the story of two rape cases; one that the whole world is paying attention to and one that has attracted no attention at all.
As Russell Brand listens to the evidence of his six accusers, a mile away in court 9 of Inner London crown court, Michael, a 32-year-old data analyst, sits in the dock as a prosecution barrister outlines what happened during the afternoon of 17 June 2025, shortly after this defendant, who was driving through London in his BMW, on his way to get a hair cut, spotted a 17-year-old girl, whom he found attractive, and stopped his car.
I’m the only journalist here; the creeping extinction of local newspapers has prompted a stark decline in coverage of most court cases. This morning, there were no lines of police and photographers outside the court, there was no jostling for a seat in the courtroom, no artists sketching the scene. The defendant is wearing a new light-grey suit, the slit at the back still tacked together. He is accompanied by his father and a friend. His father is silent and looks morose, but as the defendant is taken to the dock to be locked in for the duration of the hearing (something Brand is not subjected to), he reaches out to brush his son’s hand in a wordless gesture of support.
The jury at Brand’s trial is made up of eight men and four women. Here there are nine women and three men, who take notes as the prosecution barrister explains in her opening statement that the complainant, who had just turned 17, was walking home from college with a 15-year-old friend, when the defendant saw them, and pulled up by the kerb, and asked for her number, suggesting they should all go to a restaurant together later. Not long after, he messaged her and they arranged to meet in a nearby Morrisons car park. The defendant said he would collect a friend so they could go on a double date. In due course, the two girls were picked up, and they all stopped to buy some alcohol. The 17-year-old chose a chocolate BuzzBallz cocktail (a milkshaky alcoholic drink that costs about £4.50), of which she only drank about half. They were all driven to a nearby flat, where the defendant said they would stop for a while “to get to know each other”, before going out to eat. They did not end up going to eat. In the flat, the other man took the 15-year-old to a bedroom, and Michael sat with the complainant on the sofa for a while, before – she says – he dragged her on to his lap, and then over the course of around an hour raped her four times.
Later, she and her friend were dropped by the defendant at the bus stop. The next day, she visited the police station to report that she had been raped.
All rape cases are different, of course, but there are similar themes that run through these two trials, which are happening at once, at opposite ends of Borough High Street in south London. In both cases, the defence rests on consent. No one is denying that intercourse happened, but the defendants’ lawyers are arguing that the sex was wanted by both parties. This is the classic “he said, she said” conundrum. It feels illuminating to sit through this case in parallel, to observe proceedings, stripped of the drama unfolding around Brand’s trial, to understand the process, the core challenge of determining if consent was given, of persuading a jury of guilt or innocence.
Both cases involve a power imbalance: in Brand’s, celebrity; in this courtroom, the fact that the defendant is almost twice the age of the alleged victim. In both cases, the defence barristers acknowledge that their client’s behaviour was either “ungentlemanly” or “distasteful”, possibly even immoral, but argue that behaving badly is not illegal.
View image in fullscreenBrand on Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, a spinoff of the reality TV show, in 2008. Photograph: ShutterstockBoth courtrooms are tired: the chairs are frayed, revealing yellow foam innards; in Southwark crown court the lifts are temperamental; in the neighbouring court the tech doesn’t always work, and the heating veers between sweltering and icy.
It is a peculiar experience spending three weeks at two rape trials. To begin with, hearing the explicit content feels awkward, but quickly it becomes totally normal to be listening to detailed discussions of vaginas, penises, ejaculation, fingers, rectums, orgasms. But the judges in both cases still have to encourage the defendants not to use euphemisms. Even Brand has to be reminded to speak plainly. “Don’t be too coy or shy,” the judge tells him. “We are all grown up here.”
The jury watches a recorded interview with the complainant, filmed a few days after the alleged rapes. She is calm and articulate, sitting on a sofa in the police station, hugging a cushion to her stomach as she sets out what happened. She doesn’t cry, but looks very young, her knees touching and her feet in big trainers turned inwards, pigeon-toed. She says she told the defendant, “I don’t want to do this” and, “You’re moving too quickly.” “I was not enjoying myself,” she says. “The whole thing was rough and fast.” The defendant did not use a condom. When she told him it was painful, he made shushing noises. “I was in such a state of shock, I didn’t know what was going on.”
When she got home, her mother sensed something bad had happened. “She said, ‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’ But I wouldn’t tell her.’” Instead she told a cousin later that night, who told her to go to the police.
In the afternoon, the girl, who is now 18, is brought into the court via an unseen corridor at the back of the courtroom, and gives evidence from behind a reddish velvet curtain pulled across the witness box so the jury, judge and lawyers can see her, but the public and the defendant cannot. As she answers the prosecution barrister’s questions, she sounds sure of herself, unfaltering.
“Did you go to that address thinking that you were then going to go to a restaurant?”
“Did you at any time want to have sex with him?”
When the defence barrister stands up to argue that, contrary to her account, the sex was consensual, she remains composed for a while.