Just before 9.30am yesterday, Russell Brand was to be found standing in the reception area of Southwark Crown Court.
The comedian, actor, podcaster, guru, presenter, preacher, yogi, holy roller, author, DJ, columnist, conspiracy theorist – and a man currently known in these parts as The Defendant – had just undergone the first daily ordeal of his rape trial, tackling the enfilade of television crews, photographers and media waiting for him outside the London courthouse.
On a fine autumn morning, Brand told them he felt 'blessed' and 'hopeful' and thanked a reporter for asking a question 'so politely'. Later in court his counsel, Ian Winter KC, protested about a different kind of media intrusion, complaining that journalists on the press benches needed to be 'typing less audibly'. I guess we can't win them all.
But right now, Brand was through security and standing stock-still in the middle of the hallway, with his back to the lifts and facing the entrance. Around him, a river of barristers, clients, clerks and witnesses flowed into the 15 courtrooms in this famous legal complex; men and women seeking justice and deliverance in the ebb and flow of sentence and appeal, guilty and not guilty, penance and redemption.
In the midst of all this Brand, the Hollywood star, was behaving as if he were in a backstage dressing room, standing still while a lookalike aide with a matching Jesus-adjacent hairstyle and a copycat grey-streaked beard – valet, disciple, body-double, stylist, who knew? – tweaked the defendant's long white scarf and fluffed his curls while making soothing noises. Then it was done. Mr Brand was ready for his close-up.
Before a jury of eight men and four women, Russell Brand is on trial for three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. He denies all charges
It is as if both Brand and wife Laura Gallacher (pictured) have taken a masterclass in public impassivity in the face of private turmoil, writes Jan Moir from Southwark Crown Court
Before a jury of eight men and four women, Brand is on trial for three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. He denies all charges.
The offences relate to six women, with the trial expected to last for nearly two months.
'I have no doubt you will find their evidence compelling,' said prosecuting counsel Riel Karmy-Jones KC. It was her job to give the jury a taster of the allegations and testimony to expect over the coming weeks.
In her crystalline, cut-glass tones, she talked of penises allegedly being forced into mouths and down throats, anal and oral rape, of attempts at sexual assault in a toilet, of genitals being exposed in the back of a car, of the things Brand was alleged to have uttered pre-sex.
She sketched out a pattern of predatory behaviour which oozed with smarm and boyish charm – Brand is even claimed to have pulled one alleged victim's ponytail to attract her attention – before conquest and then coldness. He told another alleged victim that he had to leave to 'get back to his mum's'.
The attacks are all said to have taken place between 1999 and 2009 with women who – like Brand, who is 51 – are now in their 50s. We are all different people now, was Karmy-Jones's tone.
In the dock of Court Three, Brand sat alone behind a glass screen, his expression fixedly neutral throughout the day's events. Sometimes he closed his eyes, clutching a silver cross tightly in the palm of his right hand. For one who has always seemed so hyperactive on stage, it is interesting that he does not fidget nor slouch. Perched on a rigid court chair for hours, his ramrod posture never buckles. All that yoga practice and zen chanting has to count for something.
His wife Laura Gallacher sat in the public gallery wearing a pinstripe suit. Seeing your husband and the father of your children stand as the accused in a multiple rape and sexual assault trial must be high on the list of every wife's darkest, deepest nightmares, but sitting next to her husband's bodyguard, she appeared sombre yet serene. It is as if both Mr and Mrs Brand have taken a masterclass in public impassivity in the face of private turmoil. So far, theirs has been an impressive show of courtroom composure.
The case continues.
Additional reporting: The Daily Mail Crime Desk
- Russell Brand is a ruthless 'sexual predator' who raped victims while pursuing a 'goal' of bedding 5,000 women, court hears
- Six women Russell Brand is alleged to have preyed upon did not know each other, court hears
- Russell Brand trial RECAP: Star made his friends leave in a rush after he 'got laid' at Labour Conference and told them 'things got a bit heated and out of hand' and he 'maybe did go a little bit too far', rape trial hears