Russell Brand pranced around room like ‘Basil Fawlty’ before raping woman after Labour conference, court told

Russell Brand was said to have stripped off and performed “silly walks like Basil Fawlty” in a hotel room after a UK Labour conference before raping one of six women alleging sexual assault at the hands of the comedian and film star, a London court has been told.

The allegations came on Wednesday as a prosecutor said the Get Him To The Greek star behaved as a “ruthless” sexual predator when he assaulted six women over the course of a decade as she opened the rape and sexual assault case against the actor-comedian.

Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women and alleged offences between 1999 and 2009.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones told jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London that the six women, who do not know each other, were assaulted in “a hotel room, workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at (Brand’s) home address.”

She said that at the time Brand had an “indiscriminate and voracious” desire for sexual contact, and “women were simply a means to an end.”

“He was ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative. And, the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator,” Karmy-Jones said.

The most explosive allegations came from the first alleged victim, who says she was sexually assaulted in a hotel room after a UK Labour conference in the town of Bournemouth in 1999.

UK media reported the woman’s allegations that he emerged shirtless from the toilet and “was prancing around the room, a bit like an ostrich, doing silly walks like Basil Fawlty” before she was sexually assaulted.

Karmy-Jones told the court that his first victim said she was “drifting out of her head – knowing there was nothing that she could do, as he pulled her trousers and underwear down and penetrated her... he raped her”, according to the UK Daily Mail.

“Once he finished he behaved as if nothing had happened – he got up, he got dressed, wrote his email address down and showered her with compliments, apologising for how quick things had been and saying he had to get back to his mum’s, who he said would love to meet her, and quickly left.”

She later reported the alleged incident to police in 2023.

Karmy-Jones also detailed other alleged encounters, included allegations that Brand had a “desperate wild-eyed look” as he tried to roughly pull an MTV staffer into a toilet cubicle with him and that in 2004 he grabbed a woman’s breasts before taking her into a bar toilet and orally raping her.

In the latter allegations, the court heard that Brand, then a UK Big Brother host, responded to his alleged victim’s complaints by telling her “Oh come on don’t be a spoil sport, you want to”.

Brand is on bail and arrived at Southwark Crown Court Wednesday morning to a crowd of photographers and video journalists. He said he felt “blessed.”

“I feel, of course, concerned but hopeful that this process will lead to good outcomes for everybody involved,” Brand said. “That’s my prayer.”

Known for risque stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, Brand rose to prominence in the early 2000s, hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek.”

In recent years he has moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.

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