A woman told a London court on Monday that British comedian Russell Brand grabbed her breasts and dragged her into a bar toilet in 2004 in an account played to jurors as a tearful police interview, in the third complainant's testimony at Brand's sex-offences trial at Southwark Crown Court.
What the court heard
The third of six complainants to give evidence said she worked for MTV and met Brand at a party in a London bar in 2004 because she had seen him on television and thought he was funny. Less than a minute into their conversation, she said, he "literally just grabbed my boobs," wearing what she described as a "weird, maniacal grin."
"He said 'come on, come on, don't be a spoilsport,'" she recounted, telling police he held her forcibly by her head and hair. "It happened so fast... I just froze. I didn't know what to do." She said his words were not threatening, but the force of the encounter and the look in his eye had been.
She rejected defense lawyer Ian Winter's suggestion that she had been very excited to meet Brand, saying she "wasn't star struck ... I wasn't a giddy schoolgirl."
Seven charges, six women, a decade
Brand, 51, is accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women between 1999 and 2009. He denies the allegations, and told police after his arrest that he had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity and that the accusers might have "re-imagined events."
The trial, which opened last week, has already heard striking testimony. Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones described Brand as a "ruthless sexual predator," while the first complainant told jurors "I know he raped me" about an alleged 1999 attack at a Labour Party conference fringe event. The trial is expected to last around six weeks.
Brand was once one of Britain's most high-profile broadcasters — a BBC radio presenter turned Hollywood star, and the former husband of singer Katy Perry, whom he divorced in 2012 after 14 months of marriage.
The takeaway: whatever the jury decides, the courtroom accounts are now a matter of public record — and the once-untouchable celebrity playbook of "it was consensual" is being tested, line by line, in front of twelve jurors.
Sources: Reuters via WTBX; TimesLive; Reuters via WNCY.
Watch: Channel 4 News: day five of Russell Brand's trial, as the second complainant takes the stand.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0