{"id":672942,"date":"2026-11-02T19:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672942\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T19:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:28:10","slug":"russell-brand-is-not-a-psychopath-who-rapes-people-and-thinks-its-normal-court-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672942\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Brand is not a \u2018psychopath who rapes people and thinks it\u2019s normal\u2019, court told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell Brand<\/a> is not a \u201cpsychopath who rapes people and thinks it\u2019s normal\u201d and is respectful when women say no, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

Brand\u2019s barrister, Ian Winter, said allegations about the comedian\u2019s sexual conduct in 2023 had \u201cpoisoned the wells\u201d of justice. He also said there had been \u201cmonstrous delays\u201d in the women in the criminal trial coming forward to police.<\/p>\n

In his closing speech at Southwark crown court on Monday, Winter questioned why Brand had been accused of \u201conly three rapes in 10 years\u201d out of all the women he had slept with.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt is an extremely curious feature of this case that out of the many, many women that Mr Brand had sex with during this period only three of them say they did not consent to anal, oral or vaginal sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brand (51), is accused of seven offences, including rape and sexual assault, against six women in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999. He denies all the charges.<\/p>\n

Winter began his closing speech by reciting an 1864 quote from the theologian and philosopher John Henry Newman, saying: \u201cWhat I insist upon here, now that I am bringing this portion of my discussion to a close, is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet … this I call poisoning the wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the 2023 reporting of sexual misconduct allegations in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and Times and Sunday Times stories had \u201cpoisoned the well of justice\u201d in Brand\u2019s case by prompting the women to come forward with accusations afterwards.<\/p>\n

Winter told jurors: \u201cThey poisoned the wells in the hope and intention that other people come forward and make allegations against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her closing speech on Friday, the prosecutor, Riel Karmy-Jones, denied that the 2023 reporting had had \u201csuch a subliminal hold on the minds of six perfectly rational women\u201d to make them \u201cinvent, reimagine, recharacterise, recast\u201d their encounters with the comedian.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Winter told jurors that Brand had an \u201cimmense amount of sex\u201d and none of it was unlawful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question for you is, can you possibly be sure in this case that out of the many, many women who voluntarily had sex with Mr Brand, he raped just three of them?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving a highly promiscuous life is entirely lawful however morally distasteful you may find it,\u201d he continued. \u201cDisgusting, distasteful, immoral \u2013 who cares? It\u2019s irrelevant to your consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winter said another \u201ccurious feature\u201d of the case was that the three rape complainants had alleged Brand was \u201cnormal\u201d after the alleged incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, we suggest, is something that simply cannot have occurred if he is guilty,\u201d the barrister said. \u201cHe obviously genuinely believed that they were consenting because that\u2019s the only thing that would explain why his behaviour was normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The barrister said there was \u201cno evidence he is some sort of psychopath who rapes people and thinks it\u2019s normal\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court has heard the earliest allegation dated back to 1999, when a woman accused Brand of raping her after he had performed in a fringe cabaret event during the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

The woman told the court Brand had left his email address after raping her, while asking her if she was enjoying herself.<\/p>\n

Winter said the woman was not a \u201cnaive and wilting flower\u201d as he questioned her account of events. \u201cYou would have to be a psychopath to be raping someone and asking them if they were enjoying it,\u201d Winter said. \u201cHe [Brand] said he was trying to please her but he wasn\u2019t successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winter said rapists didn\u2019t try to please their victims. He also said Brand respected when a woman said no, and sought \u201capprobation and adoration\u201d from women.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe respects it when a woman says no so that makes him someone who is not a rapist,\u201d Winter said. \u201cHe was seeking the approval in the sex, it\u2019s the approval, it\u2019s the \u2018yes I will have sex with you\u2019, and that\u2019s what he said in his evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brand is accused of three counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault. On Tuesday, an allegation of indecent assault was changed to a charge of attempted indecent assault. Brand has pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n

The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Brand is not a \u201cpsychopath who rapes people and thinks it\u2019s normal\u201d and is respectful when women…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,109394,1577],"class_list":["post-672942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-russell-brand","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}