Russell Brand laughed after ‘frenzied sexual assault’, court told

Mr Brand, who was hosting Big Brother’s spin-off programme at the time of the alleged assault, strongly denies the allegations against him.

Jurors heard that Mr Brand allegedly “leapt” onto the woman while she was working at Choice FM, when she was in her 20s.

She claims Mr Brand said “aye, aye” before “grabbing” her face and kissing her.

“When he was kissing me, he was pushing his body against mine. My back was against the wall,” the woman told jurors.

Mr Brand sat upright in the dock, listening to the woman give evidence from behind a screen.

The woman said that Mr Brand was a “perfect stranger”, adding that he “grabbed me and was running his hands over my body”.

“It was rough, very, very rough. His whole body was pressed against me. The kisses were hard, sloppy, going down my neck. His hands were moving so much,” she told the court.

The woman claimed the alleged assault was “frenzied… because it was violent. It was hard and he just wasn’t stopping.”

She later told jurors: “He was rough, he was violent, he was persistent. I was literally attacked in my place of work.”

She claimed there were three men and one woman with Mr Brand who “did nothing” when he allegedly assaulted her.

“They did nothing… I remember just looking at the woman and she didn’t say anything,” the woman claimed.

The woman told jurors she eventually managed to push Mr Brand off her and told him loudly to “f*** off.”

She said Mr Brand “made a sound that was funny” like a laughing sound, after the alleged assault.

The woman told jurors the alleged assault left her feeling “dirty, shocked, stunned and shaken.”

Speaking about why she did not tell others, the woman said that “banter around women” in her workplace was “normal”.

Under cross-examination, Ian Winter KC, defending Mr Brand, asked the woman whether she could be sure it was the TV presenter.

The woman told Mr Winter: “The person that assaulted me was Russell Brand, I can’t forget him. This is a situation I didn’t want to be in, I wanted it to go away.
“I don’t gain a single thing by saying Russell Brand did this to me. I’ve got nothing to gain at all.”

She became tearful as Mr Winter KC continued his cross-examination and asked why on-lookers didn’t help her.

She told jurors: “There was a man who was mauling me in front of people… The men stood there and watched… You’re asking me why they didn’t assist me. There was a culture of fear.”

She said she “locked eyes” with the other woman and was “pleading with her” to stop what was allegedly happening.

Mr Winter KC asked the woman why she didn’t report the alleged assault to her bosses at the time.

She told the court: “I think they [the bosses] would have said, ‘Oh, you’re lucky.’ It’s not the present-day environment.

“It wasn’t a culture where if, as a woman, something like that happens, you talk about it and you tell people, and they believe you.”

Mr Brand has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault.

The trial continues.