Here's How Russell Brand's Defense Lawyer Made FINAL Argument to the Jury with Closing Argument

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: want to get into what has happened in the Russell Brand trial, which has now gone to the jury. The jurors have been dismissed for the day, so they're not actually deliberating it yet. You know, keep in mind the UK is a few hours ahead of us, but they've recessed and the defense and the prosecution are officially done. So how about that? I think in total, this was four weeks. It was supposed to take eight or nine, took four. And I don't, it's very difficult to assess the closing arguments without having been in the room, because the way a lawyer communicates, the way he or she argues, the way they use inflections on their words and so on matters. Also, who's got a better relationship with the jury? You know, who's been more charming? You know, we saw that with Kevin Reddington. Now we know that that jury was made up of a bunch of crazy leftist loons, but they bonded with him. And the prosecutors in that case were lackluster and they were tough to bond with, but he was very good. I mean, I would never take that away from him. I, you know, I don't buy his argument, but he's an excellent lawyer. He knew how to behave in front of a jury. And the question here is, how are they behaving? I imagine everything in a British accent with his argument and with polish and with some level of charm. But of course, it's an uphill battle for Russell because it's very tough to charm your way out of multiple rape and sexual assault allegations. So his lawyer has got a steeper mountain to climb. Let's go through what we know. We gave you the prosecution's closing on Friday. If you care to hear about that, you can go back and listen to that show. It's on YouTube right now. First and not just first, but throughout the defense lawyer hit on the so-called documentary. I mean, can I tell you, this is like, this seems to be their main overall defense. And while I have to tell you, like, I don't find that persuasive as a defense. I think it's a clever move because it's exactly the kind of thing that if you're looking to let Russell Brand off, you could make the argument in the jury room. It was the documentary. It was that dispatches program. That's what the name of it. That's what misled people. That's what made women reimagine their encounters with him. It is the one thing that gives the jury permission to reject all six women's accounts if they're leaning that way, but don't feel they can because of the evidence, et cetera. So it is a clever move. I see why they're doing it. I see how the so-called documentary was very unfair to Russell. Believe me. I just think it's tough to suggest six women saw it and were suddenly rejiggered into reimagining something that they thought was consensual into now suddenly it's rape. I'm more persuaded by Russell's political evolution, causing some women to reimagine what happened between themselves and Russell. But whatever, that's just me. I'm not on the jury. So you know, who cares? Who cares whether I'm persuaded? Let me give you the highlights here. His lead barrister, Ian Winter, recites an 1864 quote from philosopher John Newman. What I insist upon here. No, I can't do it. 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. He points to the dispatches program as having poisoned the well of justice. He tells the jury that Russell had consensual sexual encounters with many, many women asking jurors to put out of your mind in any distaste. You may feel for the way he lived his life. That way of living is not criminal. He urges them to do what the journalists totally failed to do, put all condemnation completely out of the mind and apply pure cold logic to the question. Are we sure on the evidence we have seen Brand did do what is alleged? He criticized the program as one sided, produced in a dramatic manner with actors playing the parts of anonymous women making allegations. He took umbrage with the description of it as a documentary. So did Russell while on the stand. He added that no journalist spoke to Brand during the making of it other than to protect their defamation risk by asking him for a right of reply and on from there. The defense told the court, "Brand is innocent." Casey Winter reminded the jury of what he called the devastating impact of the allegations against Brand, pointing out that in 2023, when all of this hit, the hospital would not let him go to the bedside of his baby son just after he had undergone heart surgery. Such a pariah was he made by that quote documentary. Russell told the jury when he gave evidence last week that it was quote devastating to have that happen. The blocking of Brand from the hospital, says Winter, tells you the extent to which public opinion has been perverted and corrupted. If it caused doctors to shun him, how many more people would have been caused to ostracize Brand if doctors were affected in this way, asks his lawyer. Winter tells the jury it caused people to change what they thought about events that had happened a very long time ago because they now see what has happened through the lens of that program. It caused people to shun Mr. Brand, positively wish him ill before his trial took place and refused to stand by him and give evidence for him. You remember Russell testified upon being asked by Winter, "Could you find any witness to come forward for you in this trial?" And he said, "No. No one whatsoever wanted to testify on your behalf." And he said, "Absolutely no one." And they were trying to make the point he's been made a pariah. Like no one will touch him with a 10-foot pole. And perhaps that's the dynamic going on with the complainants in this case too. He runs through each of the six complainants in the case discussing their evidence and suggesting the impact of that program was enormous on them. He quoted the fifth complainant. This is the one who accused him of an anal rape. And watching the program, she said, "It was the first time I'd felt a monumental change. I got it. It wasn't me." Winter asks, "One wonders what her evidence would have been if she had not seen the program." He says the six complainants are not random or independent as the prosecution has been saying throughout its case and its closing. He says the prosecution put great weight both in the opening and closing about the fact that these women all emerged independently. They don't know each other." He added, "There is nothing random at all about them. They have all come forward because they have been brought at the invitation of that program." And they say the very existence of these women is fundamentally corrupted. The existence of them as complainants is fundamentally corrupted by that program and the publicity and renders this fundamentally unfair. He tells the jury, "It's quite surprising that not one of the women who alleged that they were raped by Brand made that complaint to him." He says, "It's one thing not to report the incident to police or to one's employer, but to not make it known to the alleged assailant is something else. None of the complainants, quote, resisted or screamed or even tried to leave," he's saying. And there was testimony to that effect. He's saying, "Does that sound like women who are being raped who weren't consenting? Not a single one resisted, screamed or tried to leave, nevermind confronted Russell on it." Of the fifth complainant, again, that same gal who alleges this, yeah, he says she didn't roll over or kick out or try to stop him in any way from doing this to her. The defense also flags the complainant's words to her then boyfriend a few days later, "I own that I had had made the decision to go to his home." Brand was seeking approval and adoration from women," said his lawyer, Mr. Winter. "It's an extremely curious feature of this case that out of many, many women Brand had sex with from '99 to 2009, the period of the charges, only three say they did not consent." He's using Russell's enormous numbers in the sex field now to benefit Russell. He had a goal of 5,000, three women? Three say he didn't consent out of 5,000? If this guy's running around just randomly raping women orally, vaginally, anally, wouldn't there be more? Wouldn't there? And wouldn't there be testimony that there had been resistance, screams, running, accusations or attempts to leave, which there weren't. 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He suggests that that is a hole in the prosecution's case saying they don't have a case thesis as to why Brand allegedly raped these three women and none of the thousands of others. He told the jurors what matters is Brand had an immense amount of sex and none of it was unlawful. He added disgusting, distasteful, immoral. Who cares? It's irrelevant to your consideration. He had told the jury that living a highly promiscuous life is entirely lawful. However morally distasteful you may find it. He returns to that theme now saying even being manipulative in the pursuit of consensual sex is completely lawful. Okay. He had to do this because part of the testimony that had come out was that was not good for Russell was on complainant one who says she brought him back to her hotel room after midnight, after seeing him perform at a leftist labor event and Russell was some entertainment. They went back there and she didn't feel threatened by him. She felt sexually safe with him because she thought he was gay. And then the prosecutor in crossing Russell brought up a passage from Russell's book in which he says he will sometimes act gay to put women at ease around him. And here you have his lawyer saying even being manipulative in the pursuit of consensual sex is completely lawful. He says Brand was seeking approval and seeking adoration. He rounds on the prosecution's case saying that in desperation they they turned to that autobiography, it's called My Booky Wook of Russell's, to use what was written against him. "Let me just try to kill that off," says Winter. He tells the court in 2007 he wrote a funny book, My Booky Wook. It contains some jokes. He says the prosecution wants the jury to take what he wrote eight years after the event and somehow use it as evidence of what he was doing in 1999. He then asks, "Do you remember the photograph of Brand as a seven-year-old child dressed somewhat effeminately? It was so obviously a joke, but the joke is it didn't work. That's the depths the prosecution has had to stoop to to show why complainant one invited Brand back to the bedsit in the middle of the night." When Brand was cross-examined last week, the prosecution accused him again of trying to act gay to gain the trust of women. And the caption of that picture in the book reads, "This is the exact moment when I decided to act gay to attract girls. It took 15 years to produce results." Showing the picture on the board here for the viewing audience. The defense discussed the evidence of Helen Berger. That was Brand's personal assistant who talked about how he was obsessed with sex and was constant and never seemed satisfied after he had it between 2006 and 2007. Winter said, "It's an unusual situation where both the prosecution and defense use the same evidence to show two completely different arguments." Saying the prosecution used Berger's argument evidence to show that Brand's promiscuity and insane and his insane sexual appetite. The defense used it to establish Brand's highly promiscuous and insane sex appetite, but also the fact that he was very open about what his sexual needs were. Winter says Brand has always been extremely open and public about that promiscuity, pointing out that he's discussed it on stage in his jokes and in his books, which is true. He says Brand was pushing boundaries. His comedy was fresh and radical and a lot of people found it very, very funny. His onstage persona was rooted in that honesty. Russell Brand's lawyer said this, "The women who accused him described his behavior as normal after the alleged incidents and that this cannot have occurred if he was guilty. They would never use that word." He points out that the first complainant who accuses Brand of raping her in 1999 during that Labor Party conference doubted she had been raped, saying she second-guessed herself and told the police so when she contacted them. "It's simply not possible for you to be raped and think it is normal," he tells the court. The first complainant previously said she behaved normally on the day after the alleged rape. He tells the jury this is a moment when the window opens and a chink of light comes through. A little chink of the truth comes through. They thought it was normal at the time. He tells the court there's no evidence Brand is some kind of a psychopath who rapes people and thinks it's normal. The fact that he behaved normally during and after all of those rapes tells you what you need to know. He believed they were all consenting. And by the way, his belief is required. He has to have believed that he did not have consent in order for this to be rape. In the case of the first complainant, he adds, you would have to be a psychopath to be raping someone and asking them if they were enjoying it at the same time. He says Brand left his actual email address. Rapists do not do that. He left photos she had taken of him. Rapists do not leave their photographs. And he kissed her goodbye or tried to when he left. He said not one of the complainants reported these allegations to the police at the time, telling the jury, if a wrong has been done to you, you're entitled to have it investigated. The best moment you have of achieving a conviction is at the time when the evidence is at its freshest. It doesn't get better sticking a massive 20 year delay into the situation, does it? He says the absence of a complaint just supports the defense's position. His lawyer returned to what he called poisoning of the well. He opened the closing argument by making that reference. He says the failure to report at the time has led to a monstrous delay, which adds a second element to the poisoning of the well. He puts it to the jury that an understandable argument for the delay would be there is no shame in being the victim of a crime. I came to understand that I bore no shame and so reported it. But he says no complainant has put forward that reasoning. He tells the jury they all come forward for reasons of the TV program, not for reasons personal to themselves. That's true. And it's a good point. He complains of the rank unfairness of trying to litigate something so long after the event. Amen. Saying it's impossible now to know what the allegations would look like if raised closer to the event. The case would be radically and fundamentally different. He says there would have been many witnesses to some of the alleged incidents now all lost to the passage of time. It's true. That's why normally we have statute of limitations that will protect defendants from having to defend their behavior some 25 years after the fact. He tells the court that the delays in reporting the allegations mean all parties end up litigating in a quagmire of doubt and decades-old recollections. We invite you members of the jury to remember that delay is a corrupter of justice. It is in the way of justice. Some people will say justice delayed is justice denied. What were you doing in 1999? He asked them, telling them to put their hand on their heart and consider if they would be able to explain exactly what they were up to back then. Very fair point. He also says in opposition to the prosecution's suggestions that Brand has changed his evidence over time, that Brand has been completely staggeringly honest with you. The court's reminded that the fifth complainant's phone number was in Brand's phone as in 2012 with T space AP next to her name. Brand told the court during his evidence last week that T stood for tart, AP stood for anal play, and oh two asterisks meant that it was an interaction he did not want to forget. The fifth complainant, we've been over. Ian Winter said the prosecution has attempted to suggest the way this woman's name was saved was fabricated. He counters this saying it would not be in Brand's phone in 2012 unless she had given it to him and saved her name in that way. He sarcastically suggested to the jury you think you're at some point going to get done for rape. And so you record her number in that way adding would you really save it as that if you were worried this woman was going to come back and accuse you of rape someday? Basically how stupid could Russell be? Not stupid is what his lawyer is saying. It's a good argument. Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com or just leave a comment below. But join the community by becoming a subscriber. We really really value your input and your support. 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