Russell Brand guilty: A sexual predator in plain sight

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:06That's joinmidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. The verdict is in. Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault. As the shamed comedian faces time in jail, how did the BBC allow this sexual predator to hide in plain sight for so long? I find it absolutely extraordinary to read how many times his behaviour was flagged to the BBC and how much the BBC not only ignored it, but continued to promote him into all of these absolutely plum roles on Radio 2, presenting this, taking part in Comic Relief. Even though they must have known he was a wrongun, it's flagged very well early on.

1:53Who is it flagged by? Danny Minogue, sister of Kylie. Says back in 2006, this guy's a predator. India McTaggart, thank you for joining me in the Daily Tea studio completely unexpectedly. Tim's en route to question time in Liverpool. God help him, India. And we are coming to terms with the Russell Brand verdict. So guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. there were seven allegations against him altogether three charges of rape one of attempted sexual assault and three sexual assaults and basically he's been found guilty of the count of rape which occurred when a woman claimed that they had consensual vaginal sex but that he anally raped her and then three counts of sexual assault over the course of a period between 1999 and the late noughties.

2:49He's going to be sentenced on Monday. The judge in the case has said, obviously, a custodial sentence of some length will result. He's been denied bail. He's 51. He's extremely famous. And now he's going to be a celebrity prisoner. During the trial, Brand was described as ruthless, calculated and manipulative, a sexual predator who had bragged about wanting to bed 5 ,000 women. The casey who prosecuted told jurors that Brand had an indiscriminate and voracious desire for sexual contact and would make advances towards women within minutes of meeting them. And we have a statement from Andy Furphy, who is a detective superintendent from the Metropolitan Police, who said, Brand used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women.

3:37As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement. I hope this conviction sends a clear message that no one is above the law, no matter how famous or powerful they may be. And we'll get into that, won't we? How particularly men use their fame and power to abuse women. But it should also be noted that two further allegations have been made by two women that the Met is now investigating. So they have said the suspect has previously been interviewed under caution in connection with these allegations. Files have been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to both complainants, detectives remain in close contact with prosecutors as inquiries continue.

4:20So he could face further charges, India. No, this is not over, I know. And as we just discussed previously to recording this, he was always a bit of a wrong-in. I mean, we grew up with sort of different eras of brand. He was already very famous when I was growing up in Hollywood, in movies. But even I knew of his sort of inappropriate jokes, of his time at the BBC. And I think there was always this sort of cloud of sort of wrong sort of energy sort of coating him in a way. The point about Brand was this. The whole point of him was that he was a controversialist. And that was how he kind of made his assault on the celebrity stage.

5:00He comes into the fray in the late 90s. I started my career in journalism covering showbiz. and you'd often be at events or clubs or things where he was there with the whole kind of comedic scene at the time. So Jimmy Carr would be at stuff, David Walliams would be at stuff, Steve Coogan. All of these people used to rub shoulders with each other and there were friendships forged across showbiz lines. Brand was quite close at one period with Noel Gallagher, for instance, and I think was best man at his wedding, one of his weddings. So this was an entire scene born about by Brand being this obvious character.

5:40Back in my day, so to speak, he found fame predominantly. I know he did stage gigs and all the rest of it and he was big at Edinburgh. He found fame by doing the sideshow to Big Brother. And he was eccentric and he was an exhibitionist and he looked very odd. But what's extraordinary about all this is, by his own admission, his relationship with treatment of women was appalling. This is the thing that's so fascinating, right, is if you look through his old material, and I was recently watching the Channel 4 Dispatches and all the things that they pull out from his stage shows, they were so inappropriate and so awful.

6:21And as you say, by his own admission, he was saying, you know, I'm a self-described sex addict and talking about, you know, making I won't go into the horrible details and of things that he was saying, but it was very of this nature. It's not shocking. No, this is coming out. He's in one interview where he does brag and joke, in inverted commas, that he raped a woman once and then the next day I killed her, he said. So if somebody says something like that, obviously the audience recoils, but also thinks, is this part of the set? But there's a constant question mark over, are you this person? Are you pretending to be a person?

6:58Really famous controversial incidents from very early on. well one of the most famous was he turned up the day after 9-11 at MTV Studios dressed as Osama bin Laden. Now I mean somebody that does that is either slightly deranged wanting to get a huge amount of publicity actively looking to be fired or all of the above. What's come out subsequently and you've mentioned dispatches there because these allegations came tonight because the Sunday Times and the Times worked with Channel 4. They'd clearly been contacted by a number of women expressing concern about how Russell Brand treated them back in the day.

7:38But also, and I think this is critical, how many people turned a blind eye to his behaviour. It should be stated, parts of his behaviour have been tried in a criminal court, and he's been found guilty of this one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Some of the behaviour that he displayed wasn't criminal, but was deeply immoral and troubling. And what I'm concerned about, and let's be honest, you know me, I'm not some kind of woke, sort of feminazi kind of, you know, I appreciate that there were different times. I lived through them. Some of the stuff that happened back in the 90s and the noughties, India, because you're more my daughter's generation than mine, some of the stuff we put up with as young women, you know, you just simply wouldn't tolerate now.

8:24They were different times. However, I find it absolutely extraordinary to read how many times his behaviour was flagged to the BBC and how much the BBC not only ignored it, but continued to promote him into all of these absolutely plum roles on Radio 2, presenting this, taking part in comic relief. even though they must have known he was a wrong one it's flagged very well early on who's it flagged by? Danny Minogue, sister of Kylie says back in 2006 this guy's a predator he's made me feel deeply uncomfortable we've got other women in the public eye Lorraine Kelly more recently Catherine Ryan who was threatened with legal action for suggesting that Russell Brand had behaved completely inappropriately to her so all along the way women are flagging hang on a minute this isn't funny, this isn't some part of a comedic act, this guy has been completely inappropriate with me, and yet the BBC continued to turn a blind eye.

9:29Oh, completely. I mean, the impression you get is that the BBC knew that Brand was a risk, but they considered him worth it. And I think they were trying to court a younger audience at the time, and as you say, he had this shock value, and he had this appeal at the time, and I think that he was sort of allowed to behave inappropriately in the workplace, And I think, you know, their own internal investigation, they received eight complaints about him, sort of ranging from very outrageous behavior like peeing into cups or bottles to actually sort of having consensual sex on the premises. But then, you know, subsequently actually potentially just taking advantage of her and being in a position of power.

10:08This was a woman that came forward, an audience member that came forward. Sure. It's alleged by himself in his own autobiography, which is called My Bookie Wook, which was, I think, a bestseller at the time. He openly admitted that when he presented a show on BBC Radio 6 Music, that when they gave out awards to listeners, they would all be female. And if he could, he tried to have sex with them in the disabled toilets. Now, he claims that BBC bosses knew about that. BBC bosses understandably deny it. But in the context of turnings of blind eyes in light of Jimmy Savile, with whom he was a correspondent, we need to point that out as well.

10:46They shared an exchange where Jimmy Savile suggested he bring his sister along to an episode of Jim will fix it. And then there was a joke about, no, I'll bring my personal assistant, but she'll be naked. No matter. But also in light of Hugh Edwards. how many times does this supposedly morally upstanding arbiter of progressive values need to ignore the predator in its midst? And this is what troubles me most of all, right? And I agree that part of it is a symptom of its time. We didn't have the Me Too movement back then. But why was it deemed acceptable for talent to roam around BBC studios and elsewhere, literally with his genitalia out?

11:35By his own admission, at one point, he's touching up news readers under desks. Why would that be allowed? There were repeated occasions where he's just cavorting around naked. I mean, I'm thinking now as well of the allegations against Greg Wallace, right? Imagine, I mean, just put, let's put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine somebody behaving like that in this newsroom. You can't. I actually could not. But it happens at the BBC. It does. And clearly there is a culture or was a culture of celebrity exceptionalism there in which everything else was silenced and complainants were silenced. And it didn't matter because the talent was considered too important.

12:11And, you know, there is literally documented opportunity for the BBC to have intervened in his behaviour. And they obviously subsequently acknowledge that they should have. And there were internal failings. I mean, they facilitated some of the behaviour. A 16-year-old schoolgirl who was given the pseudonym Alice with whom Brand was in a relationship, I stress, 16 is the age of consent. He's 31. We can take a moral call on that. By the way, generationally different relationships back in my day were far more acceptable than they are now. I know from my own daughter that it's frowned upon, isn't it, for a girl to go out with somebody too much older.

12:51Back in my day, that was okay. That would be picked up on and completely... It would be picked up on now. Okay, fair enough. Anyway, Alice, in inverted commas, said she had been in a relationship with Brand for about three months and she was still at school. She claimed Brand had arranged for chauffeur-driven cars provided by the BBC to pick her up from school and take her to his house. Apparently cars were being commandeered. He made a joke about how he abused the services of Addison Lee, which is a car company used by the BBC for its talent and other contributors, to go and bring drugs via a dealer, to drop girls off, to bring girls to him and all the rest of it.

13:31Well, to what extent has the national broadcaster subsidised by the taxpayer... Facilitated. Do you need to take a long hard look at yourself? Well, as you mentioned in the list of characters, even before Brand and these convictions now, Hugh Edwards, Jimmy Savile, Greg Wallace, they do not have a good track record when it comes to these characters. There is clearly a culture where employees don't feel that they will be protected if they are complained. Well, also clearly the women involved. And I think this is interesting. We get onto this in just a minute, actually. there's a particular quote about the women deciding to come forward for the Sunday Times, Times and Dispatches documentary when Brand rebranded himself and started to describe himself as some kind of reconstituted committed Christian wellness guru that some of these women said no enough's enough and we will get on to that in a minute because it's been quite clever, his attempt at rehabilitation in light of these allegations.

14:35But we must also remember the incident, and to be fair, Charles Moore at this newspaper, along with the Daily Mail, was instrumental in reporting it when Russell Brand, then working with Jonathan Ross on BBC radio, phoned Andrew Sachs, also known as Manuel, in the Fawlty Towers series, and made extremely really lewd comments about Sax's granddaughter with whom Brand had had a relationship. And we don't need to relitigate this because it was dealt with at the time. But there was a brag by two men to the grandfather of a woman saying and joking that Brand had F'd her. Again, the mind boggles, not only that these two so-called professionals thought that they were able to speak about a woman like that, but that the BBC aired it.

15:27Right. when they could have not, they could have cut it. It wasn't live. And at the time, it didn't make that much of an incident. It was only an incident when Mr. Sachs quite rightly said, what on earth are we doing spending licence fee money on this offensive hat stand? But I think it's also a good point that you made is they felt that they were in a comfortable enough position to be able to make those kinds of comments on air and get away with it. Now, I'm going to put this out there, and I might be wrong. I might be being a righty, too much of a righty here, but did Brand's unique brand of progressiveness, his let's tax the rich, a very early proponent of pro-Gaza policies, by the way, taking to the streets and having marches, suggesting that there should be a redistribution of wealth.

16:16All of these socialist policies saw him become a darling of the left. He's meeting Ed Miliband at Labour Party conferences. He's interviewing him. Even though he's bragging that he didn't vote, by the way. Oh, yes, of course. He was the proponent of the let's no one vote because democracy is broken. That's extraordinary. Polly Toynbee, to be fair, on the left, longstanding columnist at The Guardian, described that as one of the most idiotic political statements ever made by somebody in the public eye. Rightly so. Thank you, Polly. But while she was saying that, colleagues at The Observer, colleagues at The Guardian, covering him in glory.

16:50The New Statesman asks him to be a guest editor for a period. He is lauded, he is feted by the left, even though, and by the way, they must have known because I knew. I was reporting at the time that this guy had an extremely shady reputation when it came to women. Right. It's an incredible risk, isn't it, that they took at the time? But maybe women just don't count. Maybe just somebody going around bragging that they've slept with thousands of women, bragging about the fact that they corner women in toilets. I mean, is it really that different the way it was perceived then to the way that we would receive that now?

17:24Well, he was quite clever about his approach to it all because, as I say, there was a bit of an opaqueness about was he really being honest in what he was saying or was it all part of the brand act?

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19:02It's not you. It's your hormones. Visit JoinMidi.com to book your first visit. That's JoinMidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

19:18But then, as I say from my old showbiz reporting days, I mean, there was this aura around him that, on one hand, women would be throwing themselves at him, It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? He is a shagger and therefore it's clear he's open for business. And there are always some people that quite like to get with celebrities. And if they've done that consensually, that's fine. But that's what makes the rape that he's been found guilty of even more sinister. Because clearly there was a degree to which this lady did consent until Brand pushed it too far. and she said she didn't consent to the anal sex and he pursued it anyway.

20:02And as the case was unfolding, bearing in mind his voracious sexual appetite, which he said he found difficult to control, bearing in mind everything that he said and written about his own problems with addiction, I mean, the bar for establishing guilt in rape is high, right? It requires a penetrative act. It requires a lack of consent. it requires a proof that he could have reasonably surmised that she didn't consent and therefore clearly the court has found in this case that he forced a woman to do something that she didn't want to do. It's so important that this particular charge he was found guilty of because I think there are so many women that if they engage in something consensual that then is taken too far would be too afraid to even report that or would they think is that worth reporting am I going to be judged because part of it was consensual?

20:54We know that is the narrative when a lot of women come forward. Well, one of the, I mean, of course he deserved the right to a defence. Everybody does. He was innocent until proven guilty. Part of the questioning call of some of the women that made the allegations, which were made behind the screen for obvious reasons. One woman was asked, well, why did you come forward so late? And she said, well, I was waiting for other people to come forward. Who wants to be the first to come forward? then of course when you have a situation where there is an undercover sting or some kind of documentary or an expose then the person at the heart of that will always argue this has become a fishing exercise and you know why have suddenly people come now brand's argument in court and that of his lawyer was these were consensual exchanges that the women later came to regret and egged on by journalists they've now turned something that was consensual into something that was criminal the counter narrative to that is I didn't come forward because I didn't think anyone would believe me I didn't come forward because partially it was consensual until it wasn't I didn't come forward because he was surrounded by an entourage that appeared to turn a blind eye to his behavior right and he's so absolutely enormous and I didn't come forward against celebrities so challenging in so many ways to put yourself in that position I didn't come forward because it's Russell Brand and he's got millions of pounds and social media followers and I don't.

22:22So can I even take on this man in court? Absolutely. Shall we talk about the redemption story and what we make of it? I mean, he gets baptised in the River Thames by Bear Grylls and becomes a Christian. His Christian credentials are questioned by quite a few people, including Piers Morgan, with the famous scene where he asks him to find his favourite parable from the Bible and we have to witness Brand leafing through the good book for an excruciating number of minutes, unable to find anything.

23:04Hmm. I can't actually find the verse that I had that day. But this is good enough. This is from Isaiah 12. When you actually speak to committed Catholics and Christians, India, of which I happen to know one who's currently winging his way up the West Coast mainline, they do question this notion of him and his arrival onto the Christian scene. I'm sure. They say the way that he even refers to the Bible, how he quotes it. And the point would surely be this. If you really want to redeem yourself, you could protest your innocence, but issue grovelling apologies to the women who you have made feel uncomfortable.

23:52Correct. I mean, I will just say one thing, and I will ask you this. Do you genuinely think that it is just a redemption arc because of what came to light in the dispatches and those allegations? Or do you actually think, you know, I mean, I again... Is it reputation washing? Well, he kind of always has been this anti-establishment, countercultural figure. Yes. And I think there's been this inversion where, you know, previously that was being sort of sexually libertine and this like anti-capitalist and left. And now it's actually, you know, being hyper-religious and this sort of more Christian sort of America's conservative.

24:31That's now more counterculture. Well, do I think people are capable of having epiphanies? Yes, I do. and I've worked for a great many years in the addiction space and funny enough, during that time I have come into contact with Russell's father, Ron, who I know relatively well. Back in Bookie Wook, Russell Brand reveals a complex relationship with Ron who he claims took him to Thai prostitutes during a holiday when he was 17 years old and that informed his relationships with women. He had a relatively difficult childhood because he lived with his mother, who was then diagnosed with cancer. And then more recently, she was the victim of a hit and run.

25:13And there's been quite a lot of drama there. You look back at his childhood and he is constantly and consistently getting into trouble. He wins a place at Italia Conti, the drama school, but then gets thrown out, I think, for drugs. He has another opportunity somewhere else and that goes wrong. He is difficult. He is naughty. As you say, we can describe it as an anti-establishment. Libertine is probably an attractive way to put it. He is, you know, how did Noel Gallagher once describe Liam? You know, he's a fork in a world full of spoons. Right. Right. Do I think that he is a legitimate Christian who has finally found God?

25:54I believe in epiphanies when it comes to people giving up alcohol and drugs. And I think that's an enormously commendable thing for anyone to do. If you're in the grip of addiction and you get out of it, you deserve a pat on the back. But do I then think that you can go on and pretend that the person that you were is not the person that you now are and that somehow absolves you of previous sins simply because you found Jesus? No, finding Jesus doesn't change anything for the women who were abused by Russell Brand. The only thing that might change things for them would be for them to be taken seriously, to have their crimes properly acknowledged by their perpetrator and to have an extremely genuine and grovelling apology.

26:37And even then it might not be enough. The other thing, of course, is. If you were truly sorry for your behavior, wouldn't you just go quietly? wouldn't you do a John Profumo and behind the scenes just think listen I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to quietly helping women in refuges or I mean you might not be welcomed into one but you see what I mean theoretically no I guess that's the model for redemption right it's quiet it's it doesn't give you a pecuniary advantage no congratulations no sort of recognition for it just yeah it isn't soldiering I don't think spending most of COVID spinning conspiracy theories, then repackaging yourself as the next messiah.

27:23Right. And then getting on stage with Tucker Carlson and praying barefoot. Well, I was looking up earlier that he appeared at some event with Turning Point USA, which is obviously a conservative organisation. Pick a lane, mate. No, no, I know. But clearly there's opportunity to be had. So I am deeply cynical about this guy's motivations because all of his subsequent behaviours seem to me to be a money spinner. Yes. Or a reputation. spinner as you say. And then this whole social media piece is significant isn't it because we learn that his followership has increased exponentially since the trial started.

28:00I mean what's your reaction to that as a woman? A man goes on trial for rape and he gains hundreds of thousands more followers. I'm not that surprised unfortunately. I think I'm going going to sort of harken back a little bit it's not the same thing obviously but um johnny depp and amber heard we saw a similar thing his sort of reputation his fame let's say his followers increased exponentially there was a significant sort of camp of supporters for him and also a lot of ridicule of her on social media again i'm not casting judgment on what is right or wrong in these i mean most people looked at that said god you're both as bad as each other right agreed but i think there was a significant sort of smear campaign, let's call it, going on.

28:46We even saw it in Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. It's the women's reputations, actually, in a lot of these cases that get trashed online. But, like, is there this... I mean, clearly those followers joined before the conviction was handed down, and therefore you could be thinking... I mean, he's trying to occupy the space, isn't he, with his alliances with some of the sort of podcast bros and such like, right? He's trying to make his case that he's some victim of some feminist conspiracy. And, you know, he was just a bit of a lad. And yes, I mean, some of his language in court, he made some sort of joke about how one evening he was spending his time with some women who I think were from the organization known as Babe Station.

29:28Like in order to perhaps get a little bit of a chuckle out of the jury to get some of the blokes on there to go, oh, go on. They're on my side. Yeah, it's no harm, really. You know, good for him. He's bedded that many women. So there's all that going on in the background. presumably some people feel now he's some victim of a horrible miscarriage of justice. I mean, you'll always think that about anybody. I sincerely hope they don't. Some people will think that. Some people will think, oh, well, at the end of the day, he's afforded special privileges because he's famous and that is precisely why these types of men get away with this because they are afforded special privileges because they're famous.

30:04Absolutely. Because nobody else who wasn't Russell Brand would be able to urinate in a cup at work, sexually harass somebody under a desk, or have sex in the disabled toilets. No, correct. There is this culture of exceptionalism. Only at the BBC can you do these things, India. No, I think he has sort of also woefully misjudged the culture now and the cultural climate now, particularly that joke, as you mentioned. And even his defence, it just struck completely the wrong chord. This is not how you approach these things now. You approach them only with the gravitas and seriousness with which these allegations deserve to be approached.

30:48But then just kind of taking it full circle and thinking about, say, for instance, Hugh Edwards' attempts to rehabilitate himself on Substack. And at the end of the day, what he does next, and we're going to obviously follow the sentencing on Monday, there's always going to be an outlet for him now, isn't there? Because of social media, there'll always be a following. Again, completely different set of circumstances, completely different set of allegations. But, you know, just as Andrew Tate will always reign supreme in one section of the online world, so two could brand. So we're in this really weird paradox where there will inevitably be a degree of cancellation, but there will also just be an ability to just carry on.

31:35Right. You no longer have the sort of barriers to entry of being only on legacy media or whatever it might be or legal teams. You can just, as you say, tweet or write on Substack or just you keep going. You keep building this brand. And it's what he's been doing since dispatches as well, as you mentioned. And this conspiracy theory sort of echo chamber YouTube thing that he's in. you can continue making a name for yourself and making money crucially as well which is quite extraordinary too you don't sort of face the same I suppose career suicide that it would have been previously because weirdly the tech bros still seem to be perfectly comfortable platforming rampant and rabid misogynists and in some cases actual rapists I mean yeah social media regulation is a whole other kettle of fish that if we go into it, it's so complicated how they regulate themselves.

32:30And that is a huge issue. And Andrew Tate, as you mentioned, was one of the big sort of first cases of that, of someone having to be taken off and then reinstated and the whole thing. But it will be interesting to see what Russell Brand does do. I mean, we do have someone tweeting, sort of her husband tweeting from jail. I don't know if you followed the Elizabeth Holmes, the documentary that just came out. with Nathan Fielder, but she has given her husband power of attorney. So he's sort of tweeting on her behalf while she's in jail. And that is really sort of deciding her image outside of it.

33:07So it's quite an interesting scenario where you have people sort of reputationally being able to change how they're perceived through social media while being in jail, while sort of serving ties. It's quite fascinating. Oh, so we're now at the next instalment of the rebranding of brand is Brand Behind Bars. I mean, a podcast coming to you at some point soon. Could be. Could very well be. Well, India, thank you for joining me. As I said, we're going to be covering the sentencing on Monday. And with other women having come forward, I'm not sure that's going to be the end of this matter. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.

34:12Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it Healthy Optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No. But we'll wake up trying, again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's Healthy Optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.