Russell Brand
Credit:Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Ian Winter KC said to Sunday Times chief news correspondent Rosamund Urwin, “I hope you’re pleased with yourself”. When she replied: “I am pleased justice has been done” he responded: “Well, it wasn’t…You f***d it”. Mr Winter added a parting “congratulations” before storming off.

The Times, Sunday Times and a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, ‘Russell Brand: In Plain Sight’ had exposed allegations about Mr Brand in 2023.

Prior to his trail Mr Brand had sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that newspaper and television coverage had perverted the course of justice.

Mr Winter argued that: ““The conduct of Channel 4, Hardcash Productions, the makers of the documentary, and the Sunday Times newspaper in publishing the anonymous allegations against the defendant was, and remains, unlawful and criminal. It amounted to, and continues to do so, a contempt of court and to a perversion of the course of justice.”

Mr Justice Bennathan did not accept that argument and stated that the jury could be made up of persons who had not read or seen the coverage.

Reference was made to the reporting again in Mr Winter’s closing speech when he said that the reporting had “poisoned the well” of evidence in the case.

Mr Brand will be sentenced on 9 November.