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A woman told police that British actor and comedian Russell Brand grabbed her breasts before dragging her into a toilet at a bar and orally raping her, a London court heard on Monday.
Brand, once one of Britain's most prominent broadcasters and the former husband of US singer Katy Perry, is standing trial over allegations involving six women between 1999 and 2009. He faces three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault.
The 51-year-old denies all the allegations. Following his arrest, he told police that he had never engaged in sexual activity without consent and suggested that the women making the accusations might have re-imagined the events.
Read also: Russell Brand Trial Begins: Seven Charges and What We Know
The third of the six complainants to give evidence alleged that Brand assaulted her after she met him at a party held in a London bar in 2004.
During a tearful police interview, which was played to jurors at Southwark Crown Court, the woman, who worked for MTV, explained that she had wanted to meet Brand because she had seen him on television and thought he was very funny. However, she alleged that he assaulted her less than a minute after they began speaking at the bar.
"He literally just grabbed my boobs in the middle of the conversation," she told police, adding that he had an unusual grin on his face when he did it.
She said that immediately afterwards, while she was still in a state of shock and disbelief, Brand grabbed her arm and pulled her towards nearby toilets.
"It happened so fast," she told police. She alleged that Brand jumped onto the toilet seat, exposed himself and forced his penis into her mouth. According to her account, he said, "Come on, come on, don't be a spoilsport," while forcibly holding her by the head and hair.
"I just froze. I didn't know what to do," she recalled.
The woman told police that although Brand's words were not directly threatening, she was frightened by the force he used and the expression in his eyes.
She further alleged that when the party later moved to a nightclub, she found herself in a car with Brand, where he again exposed himself. On this occasion, she said, he accepted her refusal to perform oral sex.
The woman told police that she later confided in a friend and her sister that Brand had attempted to orally rape her. However, she said she did not disclose the full details of what she alleged had happened until after a documentary and a press report about Brand emerged in 2023.
She explained that she had "reinvented it a bit because I didn't want people to judge me ... I felt ashamed".
Last week, the first complainant to give evidence told the court that Brand had raped her after she met him at a fringe event during the 1999 Labour Party conference in southern England.
The second complainant told Southwark Crown Court in London that Brand had attempted to pull her into the men's toilets at MTV Europe in London in 2001, where she was working. She described him at the time as "wild-eyed".
The trial is expected to continue for around six weeks.
