A woman accusing Russell Brand of sexual assault has told a court that reporting the A-list star would have been met with the response “you're lucky,” describing a “culture of fear” at the time.
The woman, who worked at Choice FM in central London, broke down in tears as she insisted to Southwark Crown Court that she had no ulterior motive to lie about the incident in the mid-2000s, when Brand was rising to fame as a Big Brother presenter.
Alleged assault at radio station
“There was a culture of fear,” she said, recalling the atmosphere as “people-pleasing.” “Russell Brand was an A-lister star, it was Big Brother, people were watching it, we all watched it.”
Questioned by Brand's barrister Ian Winter KC on why she had not reported the incident, and suggesting she had a professional “obligation,” the woman criticised workplace “banter” at the time. “Women were rated by colleagues on what we were wearing, how we looked,” she said. “It wasn't an environment where management were coming to talk to us about workplace behaviour, that didn't exist.”
She told jurors that had she raised the alleged assault with her line manager, “I think they probably would have said something along the lines of: 'Oh, you're lucky.'”
Witness describes 'triggered' decision to come forward
The woman insisted Brand “wasn't my type of person,” and defended calling him a “stranger” in her evidence, explaining she had met many celebrities – naming Beyonce and Samuel L Jackson – but insisting they are “not people that I say I know.”
She said she had been “triggered” to come forward to police after seeing a 2023 Dispatches documentary on sexual misconduct allegations about Brand. “I had buried it so deep for so long,” she told the court.
The woman has told jurors she was pinned against a wall by Brand in a corridor, before being groped and kissed “hard” while three men and a woman looked on without intervening.
Witness denies gaining from testimony
She broke down in tears as she insisted: “I don't gain a single thing” by reporting the incident and giving evidence. “This was a situation that I don't need to be in, I don't gain a single thing by saying Russell Brand did that to me,” she said.
Part of her motive for coming forward, she said, was seeing a video of Brand addressing the allegations against him from Dispatches, in which he said his past sexual encounters were all consensual. “I was shocked, I was disgusted that he said it was consensual, that really upset me, it triggered in me that anger,” she said.
She also told the court she struggled to understand why the men and woman who witnessed the incident “didn't do anything to stop him.” “I wonder if I was alone with him what would have happened,” she added. “There is a man who is mauling me in front of people.” She told jurors she “locked eyes” with the other woman and was “pleading with her” to stop it.
At the end of his cross-examination, Mr Winter suggested the woman had not known it was Brand at the time, but her allegation “became Brand after Dispatches.” The woman replied: “No, it didn't. Definitely not.”
Brand denies three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault. The trial continues.
