The 51-year-old comedian is accused of having an “insatiable desire” to get what he wanted and treating women as a means to an end.
He allegedly ignored one woman’s pleas to stop raping her in an assault that left her bleeding and in pain. He is also accused of having raped another woman as he told her: “Oh come on, don’t be a spoilsport.”
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 to 2009. He denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Wearing a black pinstripe suit, a black and white shirt and a necktie, Brand stood in the dock at Southwark crown court in London on Wednesday as the prosecution opened its case.
The prosecutor, Riel Karmy-Jones KC, told jurors: “The circumstances of the offending were as wide and as varied as the defendant’s career. Offending took place in a number of locations: a hotel room, workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at his home address.
“Some of the women involved protested and said no, others had no opportunity to protest and no opportunity to react to his advances but that didn’t matter to the defendant. Regardless of who they were and what they said or did, Russell Brand was not deterred.
“His desire, strong desire, for some form of sexual contact was indiscriminate and voracious. He could be nice when he wanted to be – funny undoubtedly, charming, likable even when he wanted something in return, but then demanding, entitled, a flirt with a huge sexual appetite, childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met.
“He was ruthless, he was calculated and manipulative, and the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator.”
She said Brand had told a former flatmate, Mark Pinheiro, that he wanted to sleep with 5,000 women in his lifetime and had strategies to achieve that aim, allegedly saying: “All you have to do is tell them what they need to hear.”
