Russell Brand police interviews read at trial as indecent assault count replaced

Police interviews with Russell Brand were played at Southern Crown Court, and pre-prepared statements he gave to officers were read to the jury, as his rape and sexual assault trial continued. Brand denies all the charges.

The court heard that Brand was questioned by police four times between 2023 and 2025. Each time, he handed officers a pre-prepared written statement. In those statements, he said he had sexual encounters in countless locations and scenarios, often with people he had just met. He claimed those encounters were consensual and had been unfavourably reframed decades later. He also said he routinely made provocative jokes and had shared kisses with hundreds of members of the public at live shows and book signings.

Brand said he could not remember meeting any of the six women who have brought allegations against him. But he said it was entirely possible that he had met them and had some form of consensual physical contact, which he said had been reimagined. In one statement read to the jury, he said: 'As I have repeatedly stated publicly and written about extensively I led a very promiscuous life in the past which I have spent years openly denouncing. I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity.'

The six women came forward to police independently of each other after a 2023 documentary that contained allegations of abuse by Brand. He denies those allegations.

The judge also gave the jury an update on one charge. He told them there was insufficient evidence on count two, an indecent assault charge, and instructed them to find Brand not guilty of it. An alternative attempted indecent assault charge was entered instead, and the jury will consider that. It relates to an allegation that Brand grabbed a woman's arm and tried to pull her into the male toilet at the MTV offices in 2001.

Brand has pleaded not guilty to attempted indecent assault. He has previously pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The trial continues.