- Russell Brand, 51, gone on trial at Southwark Crown Court after pleading not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault involving six women between 1999 and 2009.
- Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC characterised Brand as a ruthless, calculated and manipulative sexual predator who allegedly exhibited a childlike expectation that his every desire should be met during an obsessive campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.
- The jury heard specific allegations from accusers, including a woman allegedly raped in her hotel room during the 1999 Labour Party conference and another allegedly forced into a toilet cubicle and raped at a Soho bar in 2004.
- Further testimony detailed incidents involving a radio station worker whose protests were allegedly ignored and laughed at by Brand and his entourage, as well as a Channel 4 employee who claims she was coerced into giving him a massage in 2009.
- Brand denies all the allegations, maintaining that all sexual contact was consensual and suggesting that his accusers reimagined their past encounters following media reports of his alleged sexual misconduct.
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