Grendel

Right then, you poor bloody sods. Pull up a chair and try not to choke on your own bile while I tell you about another famous bloke who spent years treating the world like his personal dressing room and is now discovering that doors do actually lock. Russell Brand – the long-haired, sunglasses-wearing, “I’m a spiritual seeker now, honest” version of a man who once treated women’s boundaries like optional extras – has been found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Jury of eight men and four women. Three-week trial. He was cleared of two further rape counts and one of attempted indecent assault. That’s the part the lawyers will want you to focus on while the rest of us notice the bit where a jury listened to the evidence and decided, on the balance of what they heard, that he did it. And now, because the Metropolitan Police are not quite as finished with him as some people hoped, it can be reported that they’re investigating two more rape allegations. Files already with the CPS. Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who’s been running this for years, has said more women are likely to come forward now the guilty verdicts are in. He reckons the conviction gives people courage. He’s also called Brand a predator whose behaviour escalated with his fame. Which is a polite way of saying the higher he climbed, the more he seemed to think the rules applied to other people. The original complaints that dragged this into the light came from reporting by The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches in 2023. Brand denied everything then and has denied it since. Police interviews started cautious and got bolder as they went on. The usual script: prepared statements, “no comment”, claims that anything that happened was consensual and that the whole thing is a media stitch-up. Meanwhile the women who gave evidence did so from behind screens. Some of them cried. One of the newer allegations reportedly involves a schoolgirl who was 16 at the time. The Met are still asking anyone else who thinks they have something to say to come forward and be treated with dignity. Furphy’s line is essentially: the work isn’t done. This is the bit where the machine usually tries to change the subject. Celebrity. Rehabilitation. Spiritual awakening. Podcasts. American platforms. The slow, careful recalibration of a public image that once ran on chaos and now runs on redemption. None of that changes the fact that a jury has convicted him of serious sexual offences and that police are looking at more. The women who went through a trial, who sat there while their accounts were picked over, who waited years, didn’t do it for the fun of it. They did it because, for a long stretch of time, the person with the microphones and the dressing rooms and the cars that could be sent to collect people held most of the power. That power is now being measured against evidence and a verdict. It is not a clean process. It is rarely a comfortable one. But it is the process that exists. So here we are. Another famous man. Another set of women who said no and were not believed until a jury said otherwise on at least some of the counts. Another police force saying there may be more. The rest is noise. The noise will be loud. It usually is. @rustyrockets #RussellBrand #SouthwarkCrownCourt #MetPolice #Justice #BelieveWomen #UKNews