Russell Brand's former housemate Mark Pinheiro appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss the comedian's behaviour while they lived together in London before Brand found fame in Hollywood. Following the news that Brand has been convicted of rape and sexual assault, Pinheiro spoke about moments when Brand would "misbehave," saying he was shocked by what he saw while the men around him decided to keep quiet.
Peer pressure and turning a blind eye
Speaking to Kate Garraway and Ranvir Singh, Pinheiro said: "My own father brought me up well on how to respect other people, with certain levels of morals and ethics. When you're in a group dynamic where it might just be boys and someone like Russell, who is quite boastful, and people admire him and look up to him, a lot of peer pressure is at play there, and a lot of guys in the room would fall in and wouldn't want to speak out of turn."
He added: "It does take a certain level of strength. When we used to see Russell misbehaving, people around us learned to turn a blind eye, because they didn't want to bear witness and say they saw something. I was very late to the party and hadn't learnt that strategy yet, so I was still noticing things and was shocked, and still going 'did you see that?' and they would pretend like they didn't know what I was talking about."
Ranvir thanked him for answering the "difficult" question she had asked him about the group dynamic around perpetrators.
Conviction and sentencing
At Southwark Crown Court on November 5, Brand was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault against four different women, with the offences taking place between 2004 and 2009. He was cleared of two other counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Upon the verdicts, he was immediately remanded into custody by the judge and is awaiting sentencing on November 9. It is not known how long the sentence will be, but the judge warned him he would face a "substantial" custodial prison term.
