Dispatches/Sunday Times investigation: Russell Brand accused of rape and sexual assault

[LangleyBlue1970]

I see Perry has crawled out from recording her shit songs.

 

[jimbopm]

As with other media exposes (Weinstein, Saville, Epstein etc) it's taken a really long and concerted investigation in order to make it to the publication stage. C4/The Times would have been fully aware of the litigation risks from Brand had they not double and triple checked their sources and info. The fact that it's a supposedly right leaning newspaper and a supposedly left leaning broadcaster collaborating on the investigation was no doubt intended to rebuff any accusations of bias one way or another. Predictably Brand has tried to paint this as some sort of mainstream media conspiracy against him, but the truth is that a conspiracy can easily be unravelled by facts and evidence.

My sympathies with the victims, another case of helpless/impressionable women being coerced, forced even, into intimacy by a male with a high profile in the 'celebrity' world. Never underestimate the courage required - even under anonymity - to be able to come forward with these claims. No doubt many of these victims tried to convince themselves that there was something normal about what happened to them, maybe even blaming
themselves for what happened.

As for why not go to the police and that argument. We know how difficult it has been for our legal system to make charges of rape and sexual assault stick in the courts and going to the police means going public, fighting the case on your own against a person with a higher profile and much greater resources at their disposal. By going this way they can be protected with anonymity and as we have seen since the revelations first broke, it allows others to come forward, adding weight to the evidence and providing validation of their own experiences.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Whoah. Mate, with all due respect, you are way fucking overthinking this.

I don’t think I am.

I think many are under-thinking the implications of the sort of reasoning being used in this thread and it was one of the drivers of challenges society faces now.

Underuse of reasoning and logic is a huge problem today—in fact, the likes of Russell Brand, Alex Jones, Joe Rogab, Peirs Morgan, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and many others have made a career of that deficiency and we are all suffering because of it.

 

[mexico1970]

Yes, it definitely is these days. Notably so. Especially if it went to a trial, which it must have done.

Sentences for rape have gone up enormously in the last couple of decades.

There should be almost no mitigating circumstances for adults, plenty get away with light terms.

I know you say they have gone up and you obviously have more knowledge on the sentencing guidelines than I do but there are some proper wrong 'uns who are out there after short sentences.

I am proud of my son, I attended court to give him support as he sent someone he went to school with down, now the **** is getting out soon.

 

[youngbob]

As with other media exposes (Weinstein, Saville, Epstein etc) it's taken a really long and concerted investigation in order to make it to the publication stage. C4/The Times would have been fully aware of the litigation risks from Brand had they not double and triple checked their sources and info. The fact that it's a supposedly right leaning newspaper and a supposedly left leaning broadcaster collaborating on the investigation was no doubt intended to rebuff any accusations of bias one way or another. Predictably Brand has tried to paint this as some sort of mainstream media conspiracy against him, but the truth is that a conspiracy can easily be unravelled by facts and evidence.

My sympathies with the victims, another case of helpless/impressionable women being coerced, forced even, into intimacy by a male with a high profile in the 'celebrity' world. Never underestimate the courage required - even under anonymity - to be able to come forward with these claims. No doubt many of these victims tried to convince themselves that there was something normal about what happened to them, maybe even blaming
themselves for what happened.

As for why not go to the police and that argument. We know how difficult it has been for our legal system to make charges of rape and sexual assault stick in the courts and going to the police means going public, fighting the case on your own against a person with a higher profile and much greater resources at their disposal. By going this way they can be protected with anonymity and as we have seen since the revelations first broke, it allows others to come forward, adding weight to the evidence and providing validation of their own experiences.

Funny thing is as well that Brand has drifted further and further right while Channel 4 are generally still a pretty centre-left org. The Times are a fairly centre-right paper while the most "left wing" thing Brand has ever done is... endorse centrist Ed Miliband eight years ago? Almost as if there's no real correlation to anything him or his followers are suggesting, lol.

 

[Summerbuzz]

People on social media reckon their contribution to this rolling advertising hoarding is so important the casually devalue the justice system. Who would ever have seen it coming. I mean, after a year or two, it's clear nothing else is possible.

God we're appalling. And so weak!

 

[west didsblue]

We live in the UK and freedom of speech, We should never condemn anybody out of a court of law until proven innocent or guilty,

We have to stop all this crap with the media and social media sites, We are not the judge or jury
Because somebody has made a claim in the media he's instantly found guilty,

I value people views on here, but when it comes to a media witch hunt and people believe it straight away and dare members to speak out that maybe something is not right here,

It is scary that in 2023 the people on social media sites are now a jury in a court of law

It’s scary that there are still people like you that clearly think pedo priests, noncy celebrities and bent coppers should be left to get on with their crimes until someone has enough faith in the system to report them at their local police station and the police take them seriously enough to launch an investigation.

If you can’t see there’s a very real need for good investigative journalists to put together a case where otherwise the perpetrator would be practically untouchable there’s no hope for you.

 

[Coatigan]

It’s not, why would you think it is? People directly involved rarely change their minds in online media discussions!

Doesn’t mean people reading it won’t though and there’s a plethora of people today (in general rather than on here) saying it should solely be down to the police and the CPS and I just think that’s fundamentally not true and am explaining why.

Seems a bit unfair to repeatedly do it through responses to me on a point I made over a day ago though, does it not? Which let's face it is not entirely the broader point you are arguing.

 

[BobKowalski]

We live in the UK and freedom of speech, We should never condemn anybody out of a court of law until proven innocent or guilty,

We have to stop all this crap with the media and social media sites, We are not the judge or jury
Because somebody has made a claim in the media he's instantly found guilty,

I value people views on here, but when it comes to a media witch hunt and people believe it straight away and dare members to speak out that maybe something is not right here,

It is scary that in 2023 the people on social media sites are now a jury in a court of law

Brand and others like him do this all the time. It‘s their entire revenue stream. The list of people they are judge, jury and (in some cases) executioner is a long one. I assume you are just as outraged on behalf of the victims they target?

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Funny thing is as well that Brand has drifted further and further right while Channel 4 are generally still a pretty centre-left org. The Times are a fairly centre-right paper while the most "left wing" thing Brand has ever done is... endorse centrist Ed Miliband eight years ago? Almost as if there's no real correlation to anything him or his followers are suggesting, lol.

Is it a left to right shift, or has he merely become anti anything he perceives has more power than it should in his mind?