Georgina Baillie, the woman at the centre of Russell Brand's 2008 "Sachsgate" scandal, has sent a statement to court in support of the disgraced comedian, despite previously calling him a sex addict and "seriously unwell."
Baillie, the granddaughter of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, submitted a character statement as Brand's barrister Ian Winter KC urged the judge not to sentence him "as the monster portrayed outside this courtroom."
In her statement, Baillie wrote: "I still choose to support him as a person I know him to be."
Support from the eye of the storm
Winter KC told the court that Baillie, who was embroiled in the Sachsgate scandal in 2008, had "as good a reason as anyone" not to back the comedian. He urged the judge to take her statement into consideration.
After listing Brand's work in support of addiction charities, Winter said that "there are a large number of people who had come forward to ask and provide us with statements" but "those people were not prepared in the main to have their names entered into this process, which is completely understandable."
He added: "But I can tell your lordship that a lot of people have been helped in very, very often life-saving ways by Mr Brand's care for them and personal time spent helping them."
Winter described Baillie as "the granddaughter of the late, I would say great actor Andrew Sachs – she is the person right at the eye of the Sachsgate storm for which Mr Brand was rightly, and he accepted, rightly pilloried for, for what he said was a disgraceful prank on live radio."
Convictions and sentencing
Brand, 51, is in court today (November 9) for sentencing for raping one of his fans and sexually assaulting three other women during his showbiz career. He was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of raping a woman and sexually assaulting female TV and radio workers.
The four-week trial heard how Brand preyed on women he encountered on his way to becoming one of Britain's best-known comedians, a lauded TV and radio host, and a Hollywood actor briefly married to singer Katy Perry.
Brand was convicted by the jury of raping a 21-year-old fan in 2009, after meeting her following one of his stand-up shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. The woman told jurors she was a huge Brand fan and had willingly engaged in a threesome with him backstage despite having a boyfriend at the time. She agreed to go to Brand's Hampstead home for sex a few days later, but a consensual encounter turned into rape when the comedian suddenly forced her into anal sex.
Another woman told the court how her breasts were groped by Brand in the Nordic bar in Soho, just seconds after she had been introduced to him at a 2004 party. She recalled Brand's "weird" grin as he carried out the sexual assault.
In 2005, Brand kissed and groped a third woman during a visit to the Capital Radio studios in London, pouncing on her as she walked out of a room. Brand was also convicted of putting his head into the groin of a female Channel 4 worker, after she had been forced to give him a massage in 2009.
Brand denied all the charges and claimed to have only ever had consensual sex during a "promiscuous" life, which he insisted had been packed with "idiocy" but never illegal.
