Brand’s police interviews place denial at the center of the trial
Russell Brand told police during interviews responding to allegations of rape and sexual assault that he had been “very promiscuous” in the past, but had never taken part in “non-consensual sexual activity,” a court heard on Tuesday. The statement, read out at Southwark Crown Court, formed part of four police interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025 as prosecutors continue to present their case against the 51-year-old television and media personality.
Brand is on trial over three counts of rape and other offences. He denies all charges.
In the interview from November 2023, Brand said: “I have repeatedly stated publicly and written extensively that I led a very promiscuous life, that I have spent years openly denouncing. I have never engaged in non-consensual activity.” The language of the statement was deliberate and forceful, offering the jury a direct denial while acknowledging the wider sexual history that has surrounded him publicly for years.
The courtroom also heard his claim that the allegations emerged from what he described as “a defamatory and fictitious documentary,” one he said used “false and anonymised” interviews. He added that publicity around the case, including police and media attention, had led to “further encounters” being “invented or reimagined.”
Those remarks now sit at the center of the credibility battle that will shape the remainder of the trial.
A charge removed, then reshaped before the jury
The day’s proceedings also brought a change to one of the counts facing Brand. The jury was formally asked to find him not guilty of a charge of indecent assault after the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, said there was “insufficient evidence to support the charge of indecent assault.”
The allegation had related to a woman who said Brand grabbed her arm and tried to drag her into a toilet in 2001 while she worked at MTV. The original count did not stand in its presented form. Instead, the court was given an amended indictment alleging attempted indecent assault, to which Brand has pleaded not guilty.
For a jury, that kind of adjustment is not procedural background noise. It changes the precise legal label attached to the conduct at issue, while leaving the underlying account in the case for consideration under the amended charge. The prosecution must still prove its case on the count that remains.
The remaining allegations are serious and numerous. Brand denies three counts of rape, three charges of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault. His not-guilty pleas keep the trial tightly focused on the competing accounts offered by complainants, investigators and the defendant himself.
The court will hear the prosecution’s case before the defence responds
Prosecutors are due to conclude their case on Wednesday morning, after which the defence is expected to begin. That sequencing matters because the next stage of the trial will determine whether Brand’s legal team attempts to undermine the factual basis of the allegations, challenge witness reliability, or argue that the evidence does not reach the criminal standard needed for conviction.
At this point, the court has not reached any verdict. The jury has heard only part of the evidence, and the picture will continue to develop as more witnesses are called and cross-examination unfolds.
The police interviews, however, already show the strategy Brand appears to have adopted from the outset: a broad denial of non-consensual conduct, coupled with an insistence that public discussion of his life has been distorted by hostile and unreliable accounts. He has presented himself as someone whose private life was consensual, but chaotic and highly public, rather than criminal.
That framing will be tested against the testimony and evidence still to come.
Consent, credibility and the legal burden now define the case
Sexual offence trials often turn less on broad reputation than on the specific details of individual encounters, the timing of disclosures and the consistency of witness accounts. In this case, the stakes are heightened by the number of counts and the fact that they span different incidents. The jury will have to consider each allegation separately, and the amended indictment adds another layer of legal precision to that task.
Brand’s prepared statement in police interviews gives the defence an early line of argument: a categorical denial, an acknowledgment of a promiscuous past and an attempt to portray the allegations as constructed rather than genuine. The prosecution will seek to show that those claims do not withstand scrutiny when set against the evidence.
The court also heard that Brand’s wife, Laura, accompanied him to court on Tuesday. Her presence was noted as the case continued to move through a hearing that has already become closely watched because of Brand’s public profile and the seriousness of the charges.
As the prosecution closes on Wednesday and the defence begins its case, the jury will face the core question at the heart of the trial: whether the evidence proves that the encounters described by complainants were non-consensual, or whether Brand’s denials create reasonable doubt. The court has not yet heard the full defence response, and no verdict has been reached.