Russell Brand raped woman even though she screamed in pain, court hears

Parents, colleagues and others encouraged her to go to police but she feared she would not be believed

A woman told her mother that Russell Brand had raped her and “didn’t stop even when she screamed out in pain”, a court has heard.

The woman also told a colleague she was “bleeding everywhere” and that Brand had shouted at her, saying, “Look what you’ve done to my fucking sheets”, Southwark crown court heard on Thursday.

The woman told her parents, friends, boyfriend and a sexual health nurse about the alleged attack and several encouraged her to go to the police but she feared she would not be believed, the court was told.

Brand faces three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999. The 51-year-old denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

The court heard on Thursday from 24 witnesses connected to the woman, who alleges Brand anally raped her at his London townhouse after picking her out from a crowd at one of his standup performances at the Hammersmith Apollo in early 2009. She alleges they had consensual vaginal sex before the comedian “flipped” her over and raped her.

Giving evidence over video link, a friend who had accompanied the woman to the gig said the comedian had signed off the show by saying: “If you see me out in the foyer and you think ‘I really fancy him and would like to have sex with him, but I can’t because it is Russell Brand’, you probably can … my age range is from 16 to death.”

The woman’s parents said their daughter had confided in them shortly after the alleged attack and feared she had contracted HIV. In a witness statement read by the junior prosecution counsel, Suki Dhadda, the woman’s mother said: “She said he forced anal sex on her and didn’t stop even when she screamed out in pain and asked him to stop.”

Her father said his daughter told him: “They were having sex, she asked him to stop, she kept saying she had been assaulted. I turned to her in the car and asked her if she asked him to stop, and she said ‘yes’ several times. It was then I said to her: ‘You have been raped, that’s rape.’”

The woman’s colleague told the court the alleged victim was “ashen, greyish, and looked ill” when describing shortly after the alleged attack how Brand had “really fucking hurt” her.

The colleague told the court: “She described that he got aggressive and pushed her down on the bed and she couldn’t breathe and she was trying to say stop because it was hurting her. I said: ‘Did you stay stop?’ and she said: ‘Yes, multiple times.’”

Recalling the woman’s account, the colleague added: “She was bleeding everywhere, from her anus, and he shouted at her, Mr Brand, he said: ‘Look what you’ve done to my fucking sheets’ or something like that, and she was very embarrassed.”

The witness said she told the woman she had been raped and encouraged her to go to the police but the woman replied: “They won’t believe me. I went to his house.”

A friend of the woman also told the court that she had encouraged her to go to the police, but the alleged victim “felt it wasn’t worth it”.

“She didn’t think she would be believed,” the witness said. A couple of days after the alleged attack the woman told her Brand had treated her “like an animal”. “She was in a lot of pain and asked him to stop anally raping her and he wouldn’t,” her friend said.

Another friend recalled how the woman had told her that Brand called her “dirty” after the alleged rape and how “he had gone from being charming to violent and cold-hearted”.

The friend added the woman’s “face was as white as a sheet” when she bumped into Brand at the Edinburgh festival in the summer after the alleged attack.

In her witness statement read to the court, the friend said she was at the festival when Brand was “pinging off” the woman’s phone with messages and calls.

“She was concerned that he had tracked her down because he was still pursuing her in the lead-up to that. He was becoming increasingly frustrated that she wasn’t responding to him. I could see he really want to see her and have sex with her from the using crude sexual language in the messages,” the friend said.

In 2024, the woman confided in another friend about the festival encounter and said she had replied to one of Brand’s messages saying: “I wouldn’t treat a dog the way you treated me.”

Another friend spoke of the toll the alleged rape had had on the woman, saying she had been a “bright, confident and bubbly girl” but the encounter with Brand had “changed her”. “It’s like she lost respect for herself after that day. She blamed herself for what happened,” the friend said in a witness statement.

The woman’s former boyfriend told the court that she had not wanted to have anal sex but had “surrendered”. In cross-examination by Brand’s barrister Ian Winter KC the man was asked about a witness statement he had given in June 2025 in which he said the woman had “come round” to having anal sex.