A woman who accused British comedian Russell Brand of rape told police she couldn’t speak or breathe during the alleged attack, a jury has heard.
The 51-year-old woman alleges Brand raped her in 2009 after they met at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, where he had performed a stand-up comedy show.
Brand faces seven charges involving six female complainants. The charges include three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The allegations span 1999 to 2009. He denies all the charges.
In video evidence played in court, the woman told a police officer that she performed a sex act on Brand at the theatre after he invited her for drinks following the show.
She said she gave him her phone number because she was a massive Russell Brand fan and a massive comedy fan at the time.
Brand later messaged her, and she went to his home in Hampstead knowing they would have sex, she told police.
But she alleged that the encounter became rape when Brand began having anal sex with her and ignored her pleas to stop.
The woman said Brand told her to shower because her hair smelled funny when she arrived at his home. He then asked her to brush her teeth. “I was trying to make a joke of what he was making me do,” she said. “All of those things made me feel, ‘I don’t like this’.”
She said Brand turned her over after she got onto his bed, and the alleged rape followed.
“From the very moment it happened, I felt I had willingly gone there and from what his reputation was, what did I expect?” she told police.
She said Brand “hurt me and harmed me, and when I asked him to stop, he didn’t.” The horror in anyone that I told was not enough to make me believe I didn’t deserve it.”
The woman said she told friends and family about the alleged attack and underwent sexual health tests because she believed she had contracted a disease from Brand.
The jury also heard evidence from another woman who accused Brand of sexual assault at the Choice FM radio studios in central London in the mid-2000s.
The woman, now in her 50s, said she had never met Brand before the alleged incident. She believed he was at the building because of his work on Channel 4’s Big Brother’s Big Mouth.
She told the court that she came out of a small room and found Brand outside.
“He said ‘aye aye’,” she said. “He grabbed me by my face, started to kiss me, and when he was kissing me he started pushing me his body against me.”
She described the alleged encounter as “frenzied” and “violent”, saying Brand kissed her roughly, pressed his body against hers and ran his hands over her body.
“He was kissing me, it was very frenzied. There was no time for me to even understand what was going on,” she told the jury.
The woman said she was pushed against a wall while Brand touched her breasts and buttocks.
“His whole body was pressed against me the kisses were hard and sloppy and going down my neck. His hands were moving so much the reason I used the word frenzied was because it was violent. He just wasn’t stopping.”
She said she pushed Brand away and swore at him. Several people were with him, but she alleged that none intervened or raised concerns about what had happened.
The woman said she felt dirty shocked and shaken after the alleged assault and did not tell anyone at the time.
Asked why she did not report the incident to police, she said she feared she would not be believed and could lose her job. “I could lose my job and I had a mortgage to pay,” she told the court, adding that she had buried it for so long.”
She said she came forward after watching a television documentary about Brand and allegations concerning his behaviour.
A third complainant, who worked with Brand on a Channel 4 project in 2009, also gave evidence.
She told the jury that members of Brand’s team asked her to give him a massage while they were working in the same space. After she refused, she alleged that Brand entered the room and placed his head in her lap, near her groin.
Asked where his mouth and nose were, she replied: “In my vaginal area.”
The woman said she was “so repulsed at the situation”. She reported the alleged incident to her line manager, who then passed it on to senior staff.
Brand sat facing forward as the women gave evidence, making little change to his posture. His wife, Laura Brand, sat to his right outside the dock.
Brand has pleaded not guilty to all seven charges. He has said that any sexual contact, if it occurred, was consensual.The trial continues.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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