Russell Brand due to give evidence at Southwark Crown Court rape trial

Left · 1Russell Brand, 51, was due to give evidence for the first time in his own defence on Tuesday 27 October at Southwark Crown Court, where he is on trial on rape and sexual assault charges. 1 Mixed · 2He is accused of three counts of rape and three of sexual assault, and he denies all the charges. 2 1 Mixed · 2The Mirror says it had previously reported one count of indecent assault; the Evening Standard reports that on Tuesday that allegation was changed to a charge of attempted indecent assault. 1 2

Left · 1Mr Justice Bennathan told jurors on Monday that the prosecution case had nearly finished and that the defence would begin when the trial resumed on Tuesday. 1 Centre · 1The trial has heard from six women who say Brand committed sexual misconduct against them between 1999 and 2009, including an alleged rape of a woman he met at the 1999 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth and an alleged rape of a 21-year-old fan in 2009 after a Hammersmith Apollo show. 2 Centre · 1Other allegations include that he tried to drag an MTV worker into a toilet, groped another MTV worker in a Soho bar and forced her into oral sex, kissed and groped a radio worker in 2005, and sexually assaulted a Channel 4 staffer in 2009. 2

Left · 1His former personal assistant, Helen Berger, who worked for him from June 2006 to February 2007, told the court she saw him mistreat women, that he had what she called an "insane sexual appetite", and that she left after nine months because she was sick of him. 1 Left · 1Ms Berger also said he used MySpace to find sexual partners, often wore only underwear at his flat, and that she stopped obtaining fans' phone numbers for him after feeling uncomfortable. 1 Centre · 1The Evening Standard reports that in four police interviews between November 2023 and July 2025 Brand said he had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity and called the allegations false. 2

Centre · 1He told police he had led a "very promiscuous" life, kissed hundreds of fans, had sex in toilet cubicles and sometimes asked casual partners to leave soon afterwards, but argued that consensual encounters had been "unfavourably reframed decades later". 2 Centre · 1He described the 16 September 2023 documentary and newspaper investigation as "defamatory and fictitious", and said later appeals for complainants led to encounters being "invented or reimagined". 2 Centre · 1On the Soho bar allegation, he said it was "likely" he attended the event but that he would not have touched her breasts unless consensual, and that he had never forced anyone into a toilet. 2

Centre · 1His barrister, Ian Winter KC, has told the court that Brand denies any non-consensual sex and argues some encounters have been "reimagined" since he was first accused in 2023. 2