Russell Brand’s defence lawyer has accused the British media of poisoning the comedian’s rape trial, arguing that television and newspaper investigations helped create the case against him.
Ian Winter KC (pictured below) told jurors at London’s Southwark Crown Court that a 2023 Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, alongside reporting by The Times and The Sunday Times, had influenced the six women accusing Brand of sexual offences.
Brand, 51, denies seven charges, including three counts of rape, relating to alleged incidents between 1999 and 2009.
Winter argued that the complainants’ accounts had been influenced by publicity and questioned the reliability of memories dating back more than two decades.
He also maintained that Brand’s notoriously promiscuous lifestyle, however distasteful, was not itself criminal.
The prosecution has rejected the suggestion that media reporting caused women to invent or reinterpret their allegations.
It is a familiar courtroom problem with a distinctly modern twist: when does investigative journalism expose alleged wrongdoing, and when might publicity influence the evidence that follows?
The defence is effectively putting the media in the dock alongside the evidence.
Whether that argument persuades the jury remains another matter entirely.
The trial continues.
