He has denied<\/a> all the allegations against him.<\/p>\nBrand, who is on bail, arrived at Southwark Crown Court in a black van with dark windows, then walked into the building accompanied by a security guard and holding the hand of his wife Laura Gallacher.<\/p>\n
As he slowly walked past pens of camera operators, photographers, content creators, and a few fans, he paused to take off his large sunglasses before making his way to the entrance.<\/p>\n
Dozens of registered journalists from British and international media outlets are covering the case, with just 22 in the courtroom and others in an overspill courtroom watching on a screen.<\/p>\n
The ABC was in the court room and just metres away from Brand, who was sitting in the dock, during Monday’s proceedings.<\/p>\n
While Brand is known for his flamboyant style, he sat up very straight and still, listening intently as the jury selection process got underway.<\/p>\n
“We are about to start the trial of one Mr Russell Brand,” Judge Joel Bennathan told 50 potential jurors. “Many of you will have heard of him.”<\/p>\n
The judge excluded potential jurors if they had watched a documentary aired about three years ago or had read a long newspaper article from the same time, in which allegations of sexual misconduct were made against Brand.<\/p>\n
“Those are allegations he firmly denies,” the judge said.<\/p>\n
The judge also told them that the trial is expected to take about six weeks, but jurors might need to be available until 11 December.<\/p>\n
A pool of 20 potential jurors was selected, but that will be reduced to 14 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Judge Bennathan told those selected: “The defendant is clearly someone very well known. You absolutely must not carry out any research at all about this defendant Russell Brand.”<\/p>\n
Prosecutors are expected to open their case on Wednesday morning local time.<\/p>\n
For the best part of two decades, Brand was a comedian, popular TV and radio host, and had cracked Hollywood by starring in several blockbuster films.<\/p>\n
In more recent years he has moved to Florida, styled himself a populist, born-again Christian influencer and developed a massive online following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor, comedian, and presenter Russell Brand has appeared in a London court for the start of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-628635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}