A YouTuber known as Dr Heinz was arrested and spent 12 hours in police custody after publishing the name of one of Russell Brand's victims during the comedian's trial. Blogger Caleb Israel, who also calls himself Ketchup Man, posted the first name of the woman on his website, The Ketchup Report, on the seventh day of evidence at Southwark Crown Court.
Breach of Anonymity in Court
Israel also named the woman's ex-boyfriend and her work colleague during his reporting from the court. Trial judge Mr Justice Bennathan halted the proceedings when he was alerted to the breaches and instructed Metropolitan Police officers to arrest the blogger in the court overspill, where he had been following the evidence.
Police told Israel to delete the posts and ejected him from the courthouse, banning him from returning for the rest of the trial. However, the blogger, who has more than 2,500 followers on YouTube, had included the offending posts in a livestream about the trial and then linked to it on social media site X.
Arrest and Police Caution
The Met said Israel "wasn't particularly compliant" when first confronted about the breaches. After officers saw the X post, he was arrested and held in police custody in Wembley for 12 hours. Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who led the criminal investigation into Brand, said the blogger "didn't get it" when it was pointed out that he had risked identifying a complainant in a rape case.
"Imagine the lifelong impact of naming a victim, as well as the impact on the trial," Furphy said, adding: "In my mind, I'm thinking I've got to do something here to minimise his behaviour, which was absolutely unacceptable." Israel was ultimately given a police caution, and the offending blog posts were amended to remove details identifying Brand's accuser.
Protecting Victim Anonymity
Furphy said: "It was always someone like him (Israel) that has been my worry from the outset of this case around victim anonymity." He said police have gone to "extraordinary lengths" to protect the anonymity of complainants in the Brand case and have been monitoring social media for breaches.
Members of the British press first alerted the court to the Ketchup Report blog and the ongoing breaches. Furphy said police had to take action when it became clear Israel was not fully complying with requests to remove material from the internet. The Attorney General's office was also alerted but has not brought a case against Israel in light of the police caution and court ban.
The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 grants automatic lifetime anonymity to all complainants of sexual offences, starting from the moment an allegation is first made. Complainants are routinely named in court in front of the jury during trial evidence, but members of the media and public are banned under law from publishing anything that could lead to their identification. Anyone breaching the provisions can face criminal prosecution, with a maximum sentence of six months in prison.
Israel, who says on X he is from Luton, has stated he is "not a lawyer" and adds on his blog: "I am self-taught in the law, always learning in my spare time with aspirations of becoming a criminal defence lawyer one day." He has previously covered high-profile criminal cases in the United States, as well as the evidence in the US libel battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
The blogger's coverage of the Brand trial stopped after he was ejected from court. In a final post on X, before Brand's defence had started, he wrote "I think Russell Brand is royally cooked" and suggested one of the witnesses had been "very convincing".
