Nearly 20 years after she says Russell Brand raped her in a Soho bar toilet, one woman told a London court that the “lad culture” of the 2000s left her too frightened to report a celebrity she believed would be automatically believed over her.
The woman alleges Mr Brand raped her in the toilet of a bar in Soho and said that, in 2004, she feared no one would accept her account.
She is giving evidence in the second week of a trial in which the 51-year-old has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault.
Under questioning at Southwark Crown Court, the woman was asked why she did not go to police until almost two decades later. She said the idea of doing so “terrified me”, and she expected to be dismantled in court and judged as though she was “asking for it”.
She said: “In those days, he was a celebrity and it would be his word against mine.
“I would be ostracised in my work environment or friends.
“I just thought the odds weren’t in my favour and I didn’t want to have to go through a court where somebody is tearing down my character.
“I know it’s all very different now.
“In those days, you just weren’t believed as a woman and it was a lad culture of ‘you were wearing this, so you were asking for it’ and all that rubbish we were told back then.”
On the fourth day of evidence, jurors heard the woman’s account that Brand groped her breasts in the Nordic Bar in Soho before, she says, he dragged her to a toilet and forced her into oral sex.
She told the court he said “don’t be a spoilsport” when she tried to fend him off inside the cubicle.
Russell Brand is accused of jumping onto a toilet lid, unzipping his trousers, and forcing the woman into oral sex
The alleged assault took place during a birthday party at the bar. Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter, told the court that at the time his client was “becoming a superstar”, with his career on Channel 4 gaining momentum.
The woman, who said she was working for MTV then, became tearful as she described Brand’s “big weird grin”, comparing it to a clown’s face, as she says he lunged at her and grabbed her.
She alleged he seized her arm “hard” and pulled her into a toilet cubicle, where, she said, he climbed on to a toilet lid, unzipped his trousers, and forced her into oral sex.
Brand denies the allegations, and has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault.
The woman told the jury she felt “dazed” afterwards and went searching for a friend, describing a sense of detachment: “It was almost like watching a film of something happening to you.”
She also said that at the time she did not understand that forced oral sex would be treated in law as rape. She told the court she had wanted to speak publicly, but felt she needed other women to come forward first.
Asked by Mr Winter why she felt ashamed, she replied: “That’s the default that women are made to feel.
“You’re made to feel that it’s your fault because of what you’re wearing or whatever reasons a man thinks he can do things to you against your will.”
Mr Winter also challenged her on why she did not approach police during the #MeToo movement, which began in 2016, suggesting that “every woman in the world was examining whether she had been sexually assaulted by a famous person?”
Russell Brand and his wife Laura arrive at Southwark Crown Court in south London today
After prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC objected and the judge agreed the proposition was too sweeping, the woman said she had been waiting for someone else to take the first step.
“I was hoping somebody else would come forward. I didn’t want to be the first person to do that.
“When you’re one little voice, you’re not sure if you’re going to be heard or believed.”
In cross-examination, Mr Winter put it to her that she and Brand went to the toilet consensually for a “kiss and a cuddle”, but abandoned an attempted sexual encounter because the toilet was flooded and filthy.
The woman told the court that after the alleged rape she was “shepherded” into the back of a car heading to an after-party in Camden, and then realised she was seated next to Brand.
She said Brand then exposed himself and suggested she perform oral sex again, but when she refused, he accepted her decision.
Mr Winter denied that Brand exposed himself, while also telling jurors the comedian has no memory of the incident.
The woman said she was “absolutely appalled” when Brand was rehired by MTV in 2006, around two years after the alleged incident at the bar.
She told the court she had confided in a colleague at the time, describing Brand as a “sexual predator”.
However, she also said that in the years before she went to police in 2023 she had shared a different version of events with friends and family — one in which there had been an incident, but she escaped before being raped.
“I wanted to change the narrative so I wasn’t a victim in my head,” she said.
Brand denies all seven charges.
The trial continues.
