Russell Brand arriving at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday PA
Southwark Crown Court
Brand denies forcing himself on the woman after meeting her at a cabaret show in 1999.
RUSSELL BRAND TURNED into a “monster” when he stripped naked and raped a woman in a hotel room at the Labour Party conference, a court has heard.
Brand, now 51, denies forcing himself on the woman after meeting her at a cabaret show at the 1999 political event in Bournemouth.
She broke down in tears in the witness box at Southwark Crown Court as she recalled feeling “shame” and being “dirty” in the aftermath of the encounter.
And the woman, in heated exchanges with Brand’s barrister, insisted she had never consented to sex with the comedian, telling the court: “I did not want sex from him… I couldn’t fight back.”
She said Brand was “camp, friendly and effeminate” when they chatted after his cabaret show, but he turned “monster-like” after she invited him to her hotel room to continue their conversation.
“He just changed suddenly from this… camp, friendly and effeminate to monster-like”, she said.
“He was big, I felt threatened and he’s half-naked… I didn’t think at that point his intentions were good.”
She continued: “He was just dark and arrogant and performing – he was scary, he was demanding.
“He was the centre of the show, it was like it was back on stage – he wasn’t the (same) person I was chatting to.”
The woman said she initially believed Brand was gay, and added she did not feel able to flee when he turned on her.
“I know he raped me, I know I said ‘no, no, I don’t want this’”, she said, in a series of fiery exchanges with Brand’s barrister Ian Winter KC, telling the barrister: “I am the one who is being silenced.”
She said she struggled to breathe when Brand was on top of her, and told the court: “I did not want sex from him… I couldn’t fight back.”
Raising her voice, she added: “I don’t love him, I don’t find him attractive. Never have.”
Brand has been accused of telling the woman “it’s just fun” as he was raping her that night in 1999.
She told the court she was “like a zombie on the bed” during the incident and “couldn’t do anything”.
“I blamed myself for letting him in the room”, she said.
“All I could think was… the quicker, the better, really. I just wanted him out.”
Brand denies allegations from six different women, and has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault.
In her recorded interview with the police, which was played to the court on Thursday morning, the woman said she talked to Brand at the cabaret show, and invited him to continue their conversation at her hotel room when he showed interest in her political ideas.
She said once Brand was in the room, he stripped off his shirt and began to “prance around” like an ostrich and perform “goose steps” in the style of Basil Fawlty.
The woman said she first saw Brand as an “intellectual person” when they met, and believed she was “sexually safe with him”.
When Mr Winter suggested she “wanted a young man who you met for a short time to join you in a very small bedsit”, she responded: “I thought he was a gay man, very softly spoken, very effeminate.”
And she responded angrily to the suggestion that she “fell under his spell”.
“That’s not correct,” she said.
“He seemed to have empathy for what I was saying, but all the time he seems to have had something else in his mind.”
Over the course of nearly two hours of heated cross-examination, Mr Winter accused the woman of not telling the truth about her encounter with Brand, and suggested she would have left the hotel room if she was in danger of being raped.
She said she was “terrified” as she complied with Brand’s request that she photograph him, and baulked at the idea that she could have fled.
She asked: “Where am I supposed to go? Run into the night and him chase after me?
“Of course I wanted to distance myself but I had nowhere to run.”
At the close of the cross-examination, the woman referenced Brand’s recent appearance on Piers Morgan’s show “talking about shame and reputation”, and told the court: “I am the one being silenced.”
Faced with the suggestion that she wanted to have sex with Brand at the time, she added: “I can 100% tell you I did not consent, I did not find him attractive.”
The trial continues.