Russell Brand joined by famous father-in-law as he arrives at rape and sexual assault trial

Mr Brand, 51, arrived alongside his wife, father-in-law, and members of his entourage at the central London courthouse.

The former comedian was dressed in a black wool jacket layered over a grey suit, paired with a long tie.

He faces three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one charge of attempted indecent assault, all of which he denies.

Inside the courtroom, Mr Brand’s defence barrister, Ian Winter KC, began delivering his closing address to the jury.

He opened by citing an 1864 passage from the philosopher John Henry Newman, reading aloud: “What I insist upon here, now that I am bringing this portion of my discussion to a close, is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet. This I call poisoning the wells.”

Mr Winter applied the metaphor directly to the case, arguing that media reporting had “poisoned the well of justice” by encouraging the complainants to approach police.

The defence barrister contended that the women who accused Mr Brand had not reached an “independent decision” to come forward, but had instead been spurred into action by journalists.

Mr Winter told the jury that leading a “highly promiscuous life is entirely lawful however morally distasteful you may find it.”

He challenged jurors directly on the central question of the case, asking: “The question for you is can you possibly be sure in this case that out of the many, many women who voluntarily had sex with Mr Brand, he raped just three of them?”

The defence has maintained throughout the trial that Mr Brand faced criminal proceedings only after being wrongly accused by other women through media outlets, specifically a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and reporting by The Sunday Times in 2023.

Mr Brand himself alleged to the court during his evidence last week that the media was responsible “in some ways” for the charges he now faces, describing the initial accusations as “devastating.”

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC had argued in her closing speech on Friday that Mr Brand regarded women as a “disposable commodity” during the period covered by the allegations, which span from 1999 to 2009.

She told the jury that six women, none of whom know one another, had independently reported Mr Brand to police seeking “closure” rather than being compelled by any “magic force” of media coverage.

Ms Karmy-Jones described a pattern in which Mr Brand would allegedly shift from being charming to aggressive, saying: “His eyes changed, he snapped, from charming to frightening to nasty.”

Mr Justice Bennathan, in his legal directions to the jury, acknowledged there were “rival arguments” surrounding the relationship between the broadcast of the Dispatches documentary and the timing of the complainants coming forward.