- More battle of Midway… - 6th November 2026
- Branded - 5th November 2026
- Storm building - 5th November 2026
During 23 years at the BBC, and 43 years in journalism, for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, legal issues have always been central, with corporation lawyers joining him before almost every programme to check the facts, and this is now put centre stage by the guilty verdict today against rapist Russell Brand.
The law may be slow, but it catches up with you eventually.
Before almost every programme I have presented (less so with my live programmes), every frame of film and word of script would be checked by a BBC lawyer. Added to which I have covered any number of high-profile court cases over the years
So it is that I am fascinated by the court case involving Russell Brand, who now faces a long jail sentence because he has been found guilty of rape, which is an EXTREMELY serious crime.
Brand is to be sentenced on Monday, but the judge has already told him: “obviously a custodial sentence of some length will result”.
Incidentally, in the old days covering court cases, the person in the dock would be called by the surname, so there would be an assumption of guilt, however I have decided that now on The Eye the title (Mr, Ms. etc) should be used, UNTIL a guilty verdict has been returned.
Brand faced seven charges: three of rape, three of sexual assault and one of attempted indecent assault. He was found not guilty on three counts.
The seven charges dated from 1999 to 2009 and concerned six women, who are all now entitled to lifelong anonymity, and he is now being investigated over MORE rape allegations made by two women.
He was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a bar in London in 2004. They’d been at a birthday party in Soho and had been chatting for less than a minute when Brand grabbed her breasts.
He has also been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at the Choice FM studios in London in either 2004 or 2005. He grabbed her face and kissed her before touching her breasts and bottom.
Brand has been found guilty, too, of raping a woman at his then home in London in 2009, days after meeting her at the Hammersmith Apollo where he’d been performing a comedy show.
She visited his home in Hampstead where they had consensual sex before he anally raped her. She had told the court “he hurt me and harmed me and when I asked him to stop he didn’t”.
Brand was also found guilty of a sexual assault charge while working on a Channel 4 project in 2009 – he had put his head into the groin area of a woman working with him at the time without her consent. The woman said his mouth and nose were in her vaginal area. She told the court she was repulsed at the situation and reported the incident to her line manager at the time.
You can expect to see a lot more coming out now, because reporters worth their salt should have prepared ‘backgrounders’ for just this occasion.
We have already heard more details. For example, one came from a comedian and writer who worked with Brand, and described him as being “like a wolf” where women were concerned.
Cole Parker shared an agent with Brand in the 1990s, and the two men often performed on the same comedy circuit. He says they were in contact until 2013.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Parker said Brand’s attitude towards women was “absolutely deplorable“, and that he would often go from being “very charming to very angry and threatening when he didn’t get what he wanted”.
“If a girl walked past him, he’d give himself whiplash, looking at her so quickly. He would stare at women the way that a starving person would stare at a plate of food. He looked like a wolf. He looked like he was about to jump on them.”
In a statement, Channel 4 declared: “Our thoughts are first and foremost with the six women involved in the case against Russell Brand, including those affected by the crimes for which he has been convicted.
“We recognise the profound impact of these crimes and commend the extraordinary courage of all those who gave evidence as prosecution witnesses at trial.”
Therefore you should know your law.
Brand obviously didn’t…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing decades long award-winning career in journalism (which included covering many trials), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – throughout that career, Phil has always tried to look beyond the obvious headlines, and while we have heard an enormous amount of how life may be made difficult for Donald Trump for the rest of his Presidency, there has been almost no news about the problems now facing the Democrats.
