Russell Brand - In Plain Sight?

Seems to be rampant in comedy, although i'm not particularly suprised when most comedians are self-professed train wrecks. The day before this came out I got to witness Chris D'elia slide into my colleagues dms, weird situation to get free tickets to a show, the guy does a whole set about his wife and kids and then desperately trying to set up a hook up the moment he leaves the stage. There aint no smoke without fire and we always seem to doubt female victims as if they are out for personal gain.

 

This would be a very noble stance, but for the fact he's admitted to rape via confirmed text message and also for the fact that there are several videos of him sexually assaulting women freely available.

 

Who?

 

I had to look him up too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_D'Elia

Another self confessed "sex addict" with a catalogue of nasty behaviour and accusations.

 

This is a Police matter and everyone, including the accused, should be allowed anonymity until investigations have taken place. Even if the Police bring charges any accused are innocent until proven guilty. The press have a track record of lying and just running with accusations that turned out not to be true. If there is a trial it needs to be free and fair but if the social media jury has already made its mind up how is that going to happen?

 

But it would never have become a police matter without the media investigation.

 

I know who you mean - always found his "wacky" attempts at humour half-baked.

My daughter celebrated her 16th birthday at the weekend. The idea that one of these "personalities" could be even be thinking about even hanging round with someone that age is vile and frankly incomprehensible.

 

For someone so committed with other causes to as much openness and transparency as possible, it's interesting on this one your position couldn't be more different.

I fully accept the press aren't blameless in the slightest but it's not 'the press' saying Brand raped them or had an inappropriate and abusive relationship with them when they were 16, is it? A lot of the allegations seem to be borderline criminal to me - some clearly are, some weren't at the time but now are (the coercive control stuff) and some simply aren't. It's time as a society we stand up to powerful individuals who use the system to continue behaving with impunity.

 

But that isn't how our society and legal system work either ideologically or legally. The media is allowed to investigate and publishing allegations within a well defined and clearly-understood framework of laws.

What you're advocating is a world in which nothing is exposed unless it's a police investigation but, unfortunately – and especially in the cases of sexual assault – the police and courts have a very poor record of investigating and convicting sexual offenders.

Without media investigation it would mean lots of bad things happening under the cover of darkness. No one would have known the full extent of Barry Bennell's crimes had it not been for the bravery of the footballers and the diligence of the reporters. The Spotlight team would never have published the stories about abuse in the Roman Catholic church that began with their investigations in Boston and extended worldwide.

Even something relatively trivial like the MPs expenses scandal wouldn't have been exposed to the light. In my own world, Lance Armstrong would still be a seven-time Tour de France winner without the media investigating at the outset. Yes, these are much more trivial than the cases of sexual assault but the examples of what a very dark world we'd be living in.

My contention is that Dispatches and The Sunday Times have such strong evidence they were able to publish their story.

Besides, in this country, people who are charged with a crime are routinely named – unless there are specific police procedural reasons not to do so. Often suspects are named, when the police are after someone in particular. So your assertion that anonymity is a right for the accused is not in line with the law. And innocent until proven guilty is enshrined in our law – but it's not a requirement for the public. You may hold it as your particular value – and that is absolutely fine – someone else may give the accused the benefit of the doubt, and yet another may look at the evidence and say: 'wrong 'un.'

I do accept, though, that a free trial is something that is in danger of becoming increasingly hard especially when people conflate a media investigation with social media – which are two very different things.

Having said that, the rights of sexual assault and rape victims don't seem to count for much in this argument – especially given the appalling conviction rates for offenders.

 

Interesting to see he’s almost universally disliked, but he was incredibly popular back then, to the point he ended up in several Hollywood films and was essentially just playing himself in them, so a fair few people must’ve like him, at least back then?

Also putting the serious offences to one side for a second, his general behaviour back then was enabled by a society with very different attitudes to woman, even as recently as 15/20 years ago. He was the Sun’s “shagger of the year”. It was only since 2015 that you couldn’t ogle the boobs of someone young enough to be a lot of peoples daughter on here on page three. Can everybody here say for certain they didn’t make or laugh at a sexist joke back around 2006? I’m not sure I can for certain. His womanising behaviour was generally accepted and even celebrated by society then, in the 2000s I worked at a company where the staff parties were only really thrown so the directors and their friends could try and sleep with the staff, and it happened a lot. but thankfully attitudes have changed somewhat since then, but only very, very recently.

As for the criminal allegations, of course that’s an entirely different matter. I’d imagine that because all the people making allegations initially were willing participants, and because he was very used to always getting his own way, he probably thought he could do what he wanted even when they said no, and he assumed he already had consent to do it, which of course is very, very wrong and if true he should feel the full force of the law.

The person who went to the rape victim centre probably represents the best chance of some sort of prosecution, assuming they still have some DNA evidence on file somewhere.

 

Interesting take by Marina Hyde.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...s-russell-brand-misogyny-deserve-full-support

 

Celebrities womanising is not something I condone at all. If I was young and a celebrity I'd be doing the exact same thing. No doubt almost all footballers, pop stars, TV stars etc are shagging as many women as they can. And if it's all consensual, good for them!

I went out to kudos week after week with the same intentions, though possibly with slightly more mixed results.

But most men can handle rejection and don't turn to rape. Those that cannot, such as brand, need to face the full force of the law and hopefully he does.

Brand does not help himself by having the same shyt haircut, dressing and speaking in exactly the same way at 48 fuc king years old and he did in his 20s.

It would be like me still strolling around in a pastel Ralph Lauren shirt, Fosters slacks and a curtains hair cut. If that was the case I'd quite rightly be identified as a wrong un.

 

Describing cultural change like this is glossing over the history a bit. Go back to the 1970s and 80s, many women were political in how they dressed and acted. Fashion, music etc were less sexualised.

Men like Brand were part of a knowing reaction to that, the GQ lads culture that encouraged a laddish post feminist culture in women. The extremes have solidified into the sort of males who love Andrew Tate and other misogynists.

It’s not that people didn’t know better in the 1980s, let alone 2000s. There is just always someone encouraging us not to.

 

Plenty of people have had the same treatment yet when it went to court they were found not guilty or charges were dropped before any court case. If the same thing happens here Brand will always have that hanging over his head even though he did nothing wrong. If he did do it and gets convicted I hope he gets the same treatment from "Daddy" Dave in prison.

 

I was born in the 80s, so can only really speak of my experiences from the 90s onwards, and its only very recently I think attitudes have really changed.

I have a recollection of a post on here in the last few years about some chants being directed to a female fan, or partner of a male fan (might have been a visiting celeb, can’t remember) having a chant directed at her at VR about being done up the you know what, and the vast majority at the time (not me I might add) dismissed it as just ‘banter’.

 

In the eyes of the criminal law, sure. But that's only one way people are held to account for their behaviour in our society.

 

can you name some examples?

 

Cliff Richard?

 

One example I’ve seen repeated a lot is Alex Salmond.

 

Yep, that’s one, which was the result of an individual making a false allegation to the police which sparked an investigation and court case that later collapsed. It didn’t arise because the media ran a story first.

 

But the Beeb jumped on the story big-time...

 

And the BBC helicopter over his house live streaming the police raiding his home?

 

They did. They were covering a police raid on Richard’s property. Richard was not charged. The BBC ended up paying £2m in damages and legal costs. The one big question was how did the BBC know the raid was going to take place? It was prurient ‘ambulance-chasing’ and the BBC was rightly penalised heavily.

I’d suggest that an example of bad practice by a broadcaster does not warrant changing the laws regarding the publication of properly researched, corroborated investigative journalism within a well established and very clear legal framework.

 

I never said it did... but you asked for an example...

 

No, I know you didn’t. There’s no need to snap! This is quite a long, complex thread based on a difficult set of laws, precedents and discussions about what counts as justice in this country.

I’m not looking for a “gotcha” answer. There’s merit to a wide range of points of view, I just don’t happen to agree with some of them.

Edit: I also think that a lot of people (not necessarily you!) think that this Brand story is the result of a few women ringing up the papers, making a few accusations and the journalists have gone “oh, let’s put that out”. There’s also false equivalence between bad journalism (as in the Cliff Richard case) and good.

 

Can we all agree Cliff Richard's a wrong'un too?

 

That last point is important. You would know more than me, but 'proper' investigative journalism of the type which seemed to exist in the late 20th century seems to have been rather sacrificed on the altar of instant 24 hour news in recent times.

 

Only for going on holiday on a double decker bus.

 

Well that’s partly true, for sure. Investigative journalism is difficult, expensive and can take a long time. There are relatively few outlets committed to it, especially when the newspapers can just yell what they reckon on the front pages and in the comment columns and their readership will lap it up rather than demand better.

There’s also a lot more tribalism among consumers, which is why it’s very instructive when papers across the spectrum cover the same story in the same way.

Also worth bearing in mind that libel laws do not protect any other outlet repeating the Brand allegations any more than they protect C4 and The Sunday Times.

 

I think you ran that risk back then dressed like that!

 

John Leslie.

 

Shame Una is not around to ask!

 

Mendy and Spacey are two that come to mind and as some others have pointed out Cliff Richard and John Leslie. Oh Huw Edwards was dealt a rough ride even though he did nothing criminally wrong also.

If they did something wrong throw the book at them, if they didnt then they have this hanging over their heads until they die basically.

It seems this is just entertainment and gossip for most people not involved when real lives are impacted no matter the outcome.

 

Again, that wasn’t the result of a journalistic investigation. Ulrika Jonsson wrote in her book that she’d been raped by a celebrity. Matthew Wright then just blurted out what he reckoned on television.

 

Didnt the BBC run live pictures of his house being raided or something like that?