Dispatches . Russel brand .

[fabmaccawhackythumbsaloft]

I actually like Russel brand . And I don't think he's ever hidden what he used to be in his heyday. He's always been very open about his drug use, and promiscuity.

I read his first book . I watch his videos on fb , and while I don't always agree with him, he seems to have totally overhauled his lifestyle, attitudes, is into yoga, self care, seems to be a decent husband and father .

Is this newsworthy ? Young famous comedian in heyday slept with lots and lots of women , consensually he says ?

Hes never hidden it.

On drug misuse I alWays had time for his views that it should be dealt with as a medical issue not a criminal one

What's the news story ?
I always feel like there is much glee and salivating before the media try and knock someone down.
I don't think this is a huw edwards where people would be shocked at him trying to pick up young women behind his wife's back

It seems that brand has settled down , lives a fairly mundane lifestyle and is happy with his choices .

Or am I completely missing something?

Yes @Cornettoninja , the power of all the conversations being had across the country is a very effective means of change. For all the misogynists and abusers bleating helplessly about how unfair it is, so many people are having their eyes opened to what grooming, harassment and dangerous behaviour really looks like and how it thrives. It's exactly how change is achieved.

Have watched the programme and read the article in the Times - token link on the first page. Will link to the programme here. Both are meticulously researched and very well written and edited.

What shocks me about all of this is that it was IN PLAIN SIGHT. I have to admit I've never taken to Brand so he wasn't on my radar at all, apart from the Sachsgate incident, which just confirmed everything I thought about him previously.

The programme and article was horrific to view and read. Those women were brave to speak out about their frightening experiences being with him. He minimises everything though, even he KNEW his behaviour crossed boundaries.

If people argue, pathetically I believe, that all this happened behind closed doors, I urge you to think again. The clip of Brand taking his trousers down and sitting in his skanky underwear on a woman's lap was IN PLAIN SIGHT.

All my very best wishes to everyone who has been sexually assaulted, groomed, raped, I hear and believe you! xx

Has happened to me too and I give myself hugs daily and remind myself that it wasn't my fault.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/russell-brand-in-plain-sight-dispatches

@bombastix

That man won't sue. He hasn't even got an injunction which he had the notice to do. Instead he's busy whipping up support on YouTube. It's pathetic and so are his supporters.

Apparently he had a superinjunction in place previously that prevented other female comedians speaking out

What?

If he was so awful why did she go on a date with him? Back to his place? And see him several more times until it only stopped because he stopped calling?

Would him pursuing her be seen differently if he'd married her and they were still together.

I personally wouldn't go on a date with someone who is so persistent and full on as I would expect them to carry on nagging until they got you into bed.

It's not great behaviour but sounds like a million relationships that happen every day.

I've been raped and sexually abused, and that involved putting drugs in my drink so I didn't know what was happening, or another time one guy holding the door closed and keeping "look out" whilst the other attempted to rape me.

I havent seen the dispatches yet, but this account from a book is not abuse.

That seems plausible butyiu

@TellMeWhatAreMyWordsWorth just to add, that this is exactly why rotten ‘establishments’ hate the media and it’s a recognised danger that regimes target journalists. It’s not a benign profession .

Don’t get me wrong, the media clearly has many, many issues of it’s own and is never automatically the ‘good guy’ but it always makes me suspicious of anyone demonising all information sources but their own. Like, umm, let me think - the rapey guy who doesn’t own a hairbrush.

as an aside, the man has clearly only took the parts of addiction rehabilitation he wants to hear and binned off the rest. He takes no ownership of the harms he has inflicted on other people.

They claim to be a police officer, I sincerely hope that they are not.

Considering most women at some point in their lives are victim to some kind of sexual assault, I really don't get the shock factor, it happens everywhere everyday and he didn't like being told no, the texts prove that.
If you had consensual sex with someone and they text you after to say they had been forced into it you you wouldn't reply with sorry if that hadn't been the case.

@happinessischocolate I would strongly advise you to either read the report or watch the programme (preferably both) before committing to an opinion on this.

But Brand has eight days to prevent this going ahead. That he couldn't get this spiked for inconsistency leading to slander tells you that the volume and evidence couldn't likely be refuted by his lawyers, let alone silenced.

I expect a lot more. And also maybe there is one good point. The women who stayed in the industry got promoted. They would not use him. And he wants to be mainstream. Didn't he appear in "Death on the Nile" with Kenneth Branagh? He still wants in, and that film also has Armie Hammer in it, also accused of rape.

@tally00 I think the build up has been misinterpreted as ‘shock factor’. I’d agree that no one is particularly shocked to at these revelations.

What is of note is that these women have had the support to empower them to speak out without being silenced by either lawyers or industry threatening their careers. What they’re saying isn’t a shock as such, but it’s important enough that people have listened.

She was harassed for a date until she said yes. That's still overstepping.

Imagine that's a very young woman.

Women DO go on dates because they feel pressured to. This is what we need to get our heads around. It is coercive to ask, ask and ask again even though a woman has said no initially.

She made the point about how his fridge was full of booze even though he didn't drink and this was for the benefit of women. Why make this comment? It's odd, if you feel you'd made the decision to sleep with someone in a fully consensual way. Again it has an undertone that she was behaving in a way that she perhaps wouldn't if someone was respecting her.

Yes it wasn't illegal. But was it abusive non the less? Quite possibly. It's in that grey area of pushing boundaries. And that's the point.

Others in the same situation may have been even less comfortable.

I get the impression she was trying to be impartial by not automatically writing off the accused party. Shame that she couldn’t see that doing that immediately wrote off the women’s accusations.

Op , you say you don't know why these women haven't reported this to the police, yet you also say -

And when I was raped on a first date in 2015 , I told a colleague but didn't report it because I knew what would follow

Yes I put myself in their shoes, yes I’ve had two strangers attempt rape on me when I was young and walking home back at night and I managed to escape. First thing I did was go to the police. Again: change starts with women going through the legal channels, not the tabloids. It reminds me of Amber Heard crying “rape!” Right after her movie promotion but not going to the police when the actual “rape” happened. Again: loss of credibility. And the if you want to go to the press AFTER the trial because you’re not happy with the outcome that’s fine, but we need to go through the legal channels FIRST.

And the if you want to go to the press AFTER the trial because you’re not happy with the outcome that’s fine, but we need to go through the legal channels FIRST

I don’t think you can ‘correct’ the record after a case has been ruled on it court. Doesn’t that open you to slander/libel charges?

I don’t think the women from the dispatches report have lost any credibility. Do you?

It's very clear and in plain sight that Brand enjoyed pushing boundaries. It's how he got his sexual kicks.

There's no such thing, in my view, as 'sexual addiction'.

I made it clear I was commenting on that specific story.

Regardless of whatever else he may or may not have done, I don't see that story as being abuse.

So I'll carry on commenting thanks!

Re comments by Bryony Gordon it's worth pointing out this paragraph from the Times article:

Brand would regularly have sex with women he met at events. Two who went back to his home on separate occasions claim he became threatening and shouted at them when they refused to have intercourse with him. One left his home in tears.

Its easy for women to feel that because they go back to someones house that they HAVE to have sex. The fact he got abusive when women didn't shows there was a problem. He was hard to say no to. He didn't like it. And became intimidating and abusive when women did.

the reports cover the story you posted in more detail, but ok.

If you want women to report crimes then you must also insist that the system police/courts/prisons are improved.

"For victims, reporting rape is effectively a lottery and the odds are rarely in your favour. In the year to December 2021, there were 67,125 rape offences recorded – an all-time high. Yet the number of completed rape prosecutions plummeted from 5,190 in 2016-17 to just 2,409 in 2020-21. The numbers of convictions almost halved (2,689 in 2016/17 compared to 1,409 in 2020/21). Only 5% of rapes that were given an outcome by the police in the year ending December 2021 resulted in a charge.
If you defy the odds and secure a charge, you will likely have to wait the best part of three years from reporting before you will get to trial. Along the way, your trial date will almost certainly be fixed, then cancelled and then relisted months into the future. The joint thematic inspection on rapee_ found that on more than one occasion, this happened just hours before victims were expected in court. You will have lost sleep dreading re-visiting what happened at the trial only to have to get over it and draw your resolve together again. You will be tested at every juncture.
And should you persevere to the trial – perhaps more than a year from when the defendant was charged – you are likely to find giving evidence highly re-traumatising. Some victims tell me they find their experience in court worse than the offence itself.
Despite warm words from the government and from our criminal justice agencies, this is still often the stark reality for rape victims."

victimscommissioner.org.uk/news/the-distressing-truth-is-that-if-you-are-raped-in-britain-today-your-chances-of-seeing-justice-are-slim/

Currently the backlog means that cases can go 3 years before being heard - what does this mean...

Nearly 70% of rape survivors dropped out of the justice system in the fourth quarter of last year, according to official government data.
Amid court delays, low police conviction rates and fears over the trauma of reliving the crime in court, 69.2% of those subjected to a serious sexual assault withdrew from investigations.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/30/nearly-70-of-victims-drop-out-of-investigations-in-england-and-wales

Add to that stories about misogyny within the police

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/casey-report-met-police-racism-sexism-misogyny-b2304418.html

www.politicshome.com/news/article/misogyny-sexism-and-predatory-behaviour-still-prevalent-in-many-forces-warns-police-watchdog-

www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-police-face-struggle-clean-up-sexist-culture-after-scandals-2023-02-22/

and you wonder why women aren't running in to the long arms of the law?

I take any media scandal like this with a pinch of salt. We saw what the Depp vs. Heard thing turned out to be... a woman made an accusation against a man with no substance, the world vilified him, only for the truth to come out that she was the abuser.

Let the courts decide.

Mmmmm…yes, it rather makes you question his ideas around consent. I dare say many women consented (because of his fame etc) but some may have “consented” because he threatened them. What an absolute shit.

You just look like an idiot tbh.

@Cornettoninja I don’t think the women from the dispatches report have lost any credibility. Do you?

“I wasn’t comfortable coming forward until I was approached by Reporters”.

C'mon...