Russell Brand bragged in his autobiography about spying on a friend of his mum as she appeared naked in a bath when he was a child. The account was used by prosecutors during his rape trial to persuade jurors of a long-standing pattern of behaviour towards women.
The 51-year-old faces years in prison after being found guilty of raping one of his fans and sexually assaulting three women. The disgraced father-of-three preyed on women he encountered while rising to become one of Britain's best-known stand-up comedians, a lauded TV and radio host and a Hollywood movie star.
Book passage details childhood spying
During his trial at Southwark Crown Court, jurors heard extracts from his previous publications in which he detailed a childhood obsession with women's bodies. In one passage from his autobiography, Brand recalls an encounter with a friend of his mum, who he called "Auntie Josie".
He describes the woman coming to his house for a bath when she had no hot water and taking his toys into the bathroom in preparation. Brand writes that as a result of his "subterfuge" he saw Josie in the bath naked as he pretended to play with toys while "all the time watching her wash her glorious breasts".
The sexual predator continues: "'That's it,' I thought, 'keep washing; after all, I'm only a little boy. What do I know of the pleasures of the flesh?' I really was quite manipulative, even at that early age." He goes on to note how he was "already a weary connoisseur" of his dad's porn collection and had begun to develop an "almost supernatural" ability to guess women's bra sizes.
Trial evidence and defence
Brand was writing about his relationship with women and his "matriarchal upbringing" by a single mum, going on to observe how his relationship with "conventional masculinity" was always "much more problematic". His victims revealed how Brand had forced them into sexual activity, sometimes within seconds of them meeting, as he used his fame to pursue a goal of sex with 5,000 women.
During his trial, Brand denied all the charges against him and suggested the whole case was a conspiracy cooked up by the media. Asked in the witness box if he blamed the media for his downfall, Brand replied: "In some ways." But faced with the allegations against him, Brand could only insist that he values the idea of consent in sex while he struggled to remember the interactions with his accusers.
He also packed his defence case with a series of arguments that the victims could not have been raped because they did not run away, fight back, or scream for help while being attacked. Words from his 2007 book My Booky Wook also came back to haunt him, as he called himself "demonically sexy" and admitted he could be "uneasy company" when in the pursuit of sex.
He wrote: "If I want something – whether it's a job or a woman – I will determinedly, resolutely, remove anything that's in the way, until I possess the object of my desire."
Sentencing and further investigations
He now faces the prospect of a lengthy prison term when he is sentenced on Monday, just over three years after first being exposed as a rapist and sexual predator. Scotland Yard has also confirmed investigations are ongoing into two further allegations of rape made against the comedian turned conspiracy theorist.
At pre-trial court hearings, it was revealed one of the complaints comes from a woman who dated Brand when he was 30 and she was a 16-year-old schoolgirl. It can also now be reported that more women came forward to police after Brand was first accused, and prosecutors are assessing whether to bring further charges.
