Russell Brand: Even Charlatans Deserve the Presumption of Innocence

(Photograph: D B Young from London, Russell Brand London Revolution Protest 2 (cropped), CC BY 2.0)

Let me get a few things out of the way: I’ve never considered Russell Brand to be anything other than an utter charlatan. It’s not just the Dom Pérignon range of champagne socialism which sticks in the throat; Brand compounds the matter by his pseudo-intellectual routine, which I’m forever bemused he gets away with. The fawning Jeremy Paxman interview for instance, was cringeworthy. Then there’s the literary crime ‘My Booky Wook’, which I defy anyone to read more than a paragraph of before concluding that Deepak Chopra word salads appear suddenly nuanced. I also found his juvenile retorts to Peter Hitchens embarrassing, and his treatment of Andrew Sachs shameful.

While I freely admit to knowing precious little about the man beyond the facade – being as he is, so far down the list of things I feel compelled to rail against (one has only so many hours in the day), I am vaguely aware that Brand has morphed in recent years to something of a mouthpiece for antiauthoritarianism on issues such as Covid and lockdown. Like Piers Morgan however, I’ve put this anecdotal moment of clarity down to the rabid extremism of the left; whose constant shifting of the goalposts causes former liberal luvvies to start accidentally making sense, without the customary Damascene conversion.

For his part, Brand may be about to undergo another journey, being as he is the subject of a joint investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times, and the Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ program. The allegations against him are damning, including controlling behaviour, sexual abuse, and rape; the majority of which is alleged to have taken place between 2006 and 2013. Brand has already been hung, drawn and quartered in the court of social media, having his considerable YouTube monetisation suspended for “violating” its “creator responsibility policy”. The BBC meanwhile has removed some of his programs from their streaming services.

I have no position on Brand’s innocence one way or the other, unless it is the general desire to see justice done – however, trial by social media cannot be the way to go. The legal process must be adhered to – if we managed it for Lucy Letby, we can just about stomach it for Brand. Yet so far, all we’ve heard in terms of policing is that the Metropolitan Police have received a report of alleged sexual assault, dating back to 2003.

Having laid out my stall, and painfully aware that no man could be stupid enough to voluntarily defend sexual misconduct, something clearly doesn’t add up here. Point one: why on earth is this playing out in the newspapers, rather than cluttering up the desks of the Old Bill – whose job it is to investigate such matters, after all? Waiting a decade or two to report an incident, suggests calculation not grievance on behalf of the victims; while consulting the press instead of the police, smacks of downright insincerity.

Point two: we must acknowledge that there exists a flagrant double standard when it comes to accepted customs of sexual conduct between the sexes, predicated on a woman’s right to play the victim at any given moment. Despite what we are constantly told about ‘slut-shaming’, it is women not men who enjoy carte blanche in matters of etiquette. No one batted an eyelid when Katy Perry (about whom Brand might know a thing or two) instigated a ‘non-consensual’ kiss as the ludicrous vernacular has it, and yet reverse the genders and it suddenly becomes a sackable offence for Spanish football chiefs. When it came to Trump vs Stormy, precious few had difficulty identifying Daniels as the victim, despite her being a porn star whose only objection to hush money was that it was insufficient. Even Cardi B, the rapper who admitted to drugging and robbing men when she worked as a stripper has managed to avoid criminal proceedings, and is of course unlikely to face any.

The fact is, it is tacitly understood and accepted that men are required to pay some form of taxation for the occasional legover: whether it be undying gratitude, a Trumpian one-off payment, or the more traditional levy of marriage. Women meanwhile are not only free, but actively encouraged to employ their charms to exploit men to the full, as anyone who’s managed to sit through an episode of Sex In The City will testify. Find a man however, blessed with Svengali-like powers of seduction, and society will show you a louche individual getting away with murder. I suspect that at least some of the case against Brand is for tax avoidance in this regard.

So by all means arrest Brand, and convict him of any serious charges. But if the accusations amount to little more than that he is a playboy, then he is merely enjoying the role to which all straight men aspire. I have for instance seen the risible claim that Brand ‘manipulated women for sex by joking about his sex addiction and countless relationships’. Sure, try that one out on the first blonde you meet down the boozer tonight, and let us know how you get on. Like it or lump it, the fact is Brand is a charismatic figure around whom women clearly flock. And while I fail to see the attraction myself, it must be confessed: women’s taste in this department has been known to be suspect on occasion.

Point three: ‘MeToo’, or the ‘all men are bastards’ feminist trope has a lot to answer for. Beyond the perpetrators themselves, there is no one, male or female who believes that rape allegations should be taken lightly, or that those found guilty should not face the full force of the law. But with high profile cases playing out in the public sphere, it is simply not good enough to blindly #believeher, and deny the rather obvious point that on occasion, women lie. Rape remains the single most devastating accusation against a man’s reputation – and it is unacceptable to lump the Spaceys and the Kavanaughs of the world with the Savilles and the Cosbys, without due process; for many men falsely accused, the reprieve of suicide gets there long before a not-guilty verdict.

So, much as I dislike Brand (and indeed, because of it) the golden thread of criminal law must be adhered to: that guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Judging by the thousands of notches on the Brand four-poster, this should be relatively easy to demonstrate if he is guilty. If not, then perhaps we could pause to demand why such allegations took so long to see the light of day. A woman’s prerogative is all well and good – but reserving the right for a couple of decades might be considered a tad politically motivated.

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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