Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told GB News he would not be surprised if more alleged victims of Russell Brand came forward.
Brand, 51, was yesterday found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.
Once one of Britain’s best-known stand-up comedians, a familiar face on TV and radio and a Hollywood movie star, Brand now faces the prospect of years behind bars.
Sir Rowley joined GB News Home and Security Editor Mark White to discuss the convictions and ongoing investigations into Brand.
“We’re treating it very seriously,” he said. “We’ve seen in the past when high-profile, powerful figures are held to account for being sexual predators, as has happened to Russell Brand with his multiple convictions yesterday.
“We’ve seen a pattern of more allegations against that individual and other high-profile celebrities.
“We stand ready for that and we’ll take whatever comes forward to us. We’ve already got two extra rape investigations relating to Russell Brand, but I would not be surprised if many more come forward.”
Mark asked how Sir Rowley’s force would ensure legitimate complaints were distinguished from a litany of false accusations.
“Every case gets looked at on merit. In all of our experiences, the vast majority of people coming forward are genuine and truthful. We start from that perspective,” he said.
“Of course, every case needs to be followed and investigated thoroughly. One of the things I want to say beyond the celebrity idea of this is that there may be other victims and survivors watching your programme who last month, last year or maybe even years ago had a ghastly experience at the hands of someone else.
“Often that situation involved power over them. It might have been an adult over a child or power in a workplace scenario, that leaves people uncertain in coming forward.
“What I hope yesterday’s case with Russell Brand shows is, without fear or favour, it doesn’t matter if your offender is a powerful person, if they’re responsible, we will take them on, build the evidence and put them in court.”
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Brand’s victims came to court to describe how he had forced them into sexual activity, sometimes within seconds of their first meeting, using his fame to relentlessly pursue his ambition of having sex with 5,000 women.
He was cleared of two further charges of rape and one allegation of attempted indecent assault.
At pre-trial hearings, it emerged that one of the outstanding complaints relates to a woman who dated Brand when he was 30 and she was a 16-year-old schoolgirl.
Meanwhile, Sir Mark said some of the reporting surrounding Brand’s trial had come “very close to victim blaming”.
During an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Sir Mark was asked about comments made by Brand’s defence barrister, Ian Winter KC, who told jurors that “none of the complainants had, in his words, resisted or screamed or even tried to leave”.
Asked whether he would support Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman’s proposal for a legal duty in the Courts and Tribunals Bill requiring judges to give juries directions on rape myths and misconceptions in every rape trial, Sir Mark said: “I strongly support Claire.
“I think what I’ve heard reported heads towards, it’s getting very close to victim blaming, which is something we’ve thought very hard about in policing and make sure we don’t do.
“People fall into myths about (how) a rape victim must behave in a certain way, must react in a certain way.
“The evidence is really clear. Some people will fight. Some people will freeze. Some people will tell people straight away. Some people bottle it up for years. There isn’t one way of reacting.
“We understand that, it shouldn’t be possible for inaccurate statements to be made to a jury to suggest that because a rape victim didn’t behave in one way, that somehow that undermines their case, when the evidence is very clear, we’re all very different sort of psychological and personal make-up, and in the most extraordinary horrific moments, of course, people react very differently.”
Speaking to Times Radio, Sir Mark added: “The wider point I would make: this looks at one hand it’s a celebrity, but most sex offending is where someone of power exploits that with someone who is less powerful themselves.
“It might be an uncle, it might be a teacher, it might be a vicar. Could be a whole range of different situations. And what cases like this show is, it doesn’t matter how powerful the person is, we will support you, and we will try and bring down the person who did something ghastly to you.”
The disgraced comedian-turned-conspiracy theorist will spend the weekend in custody before returning to the same court on Monday to learn his sentence.
His wife, Laura Gallacher, who attended much of the trial, was seen hunched over in the public gallery as Mr Justice Bennathan told Brand he faced an inevitable and lengthy prison term.
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