LONDON — Actor and comedian Russell Brand is on trial, accused of rape and sexual assault.
Brand has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault in a case involving six women and allegations dating from 1999 to 2009, The Associated Press reported.
He is free on bail.
The prosecutor said in court that the women, who do not know each other, were assaulted in “a hotel room, workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at his home address,” and that he had an “indiscriminate and voracious” desire and that “women were simply a means to an end.”
Attorney Riel Karmy-Jones said that he was “a flirt with a huge sexual appetite — childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met.”
She told the jury, “He is ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative. And, the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator.”
The BBC noted that he “remained incredibly still in court. In the dock he sat upright and didn’t fidget or dramatically change his posture.” The media outlet said that at times it appeared that he may have been meditating but “we can’t be clear this is what he was doing.”
Karmy-Jones said the women did not report the alleged incidents when they happened because of the guilt, shame and concern they would be blamed, but they did go to the police individually after a 2023 television program levied anonymous claims against the comedian.
Brand denied the charges and told police he did not have nonconsensual sexual activity, the AP reported.
The jury was told he “provided a prepared statement setting out that he has never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity, and that any accounts had been reinvented or imagined after a defamatory documentary and subsequent press reporting,” the BBC said.
He spoke to journalists as he entered court on Wednesday, telling them, “I feel, of course, concerned but hopeful that this process will lead to good outcomes for everybody involved. That’s my prayer.”
The trial is expected to last six weeks, the BBC said.
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