The Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation into multiple sexual offence allegations after a Times investigation into Russell Brand’s treatment of women.
The force said that potential victims had come forward in London and elsewhere with allegations.
Scotland Yard first encouraged potential victims to make contact after allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by the comedian and actor were reported in a joint investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches.
In the investigation, four women alleged that Brand had sexually assaulted them at the height of his career between 2006 and 2013, when he was a BBC and Channel 4 presenter and then a Hollywood actor.
Brand has denied the allegations and said his relationships had all been consensual. In a broadcast on the video platform Rumble he suggested that he was the target of a “war on free speech”. Without addressing the specific allegations against him, Brand suggested that the media had been collaborating with tech firms and the government. “The corporatist state and global media war against free speech is in full swing,” he said.
After the claims against Brand were published on September 16, a woman contacted the Met to allege that she had been sexually assaulted in Soho in 2003.
The force said that its central specialist crime command was investigating multiple offences, none of which had happened recently. No arrests had been made.
Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who is leading the inquiry, said: “We continue to encourage anyone who believes they may have been a victim of a sexual offence, no matter how long ago it was, to contact us,” he said. “We understand it can feel like a difficult step to take, and I want to reassure that we have a team of specialist officers available to advise and support.”
Last week The Times revealed that officers from a police unit set up after the Jimmy Savile scandal to respond to “non-recent” sexual offences were working with Scotland Yard detectives on allegations relating to Brand. He has not responded to the police statements.
Brand claims he is victim of plot to silence him
Brand claimed that he had been the target of a “war on free speech” since being accused of sexually abusing a number of women.
Returning to his online show for the first time since the Times and Sunday Times investigation was published, the comedian and actor suggested that tech firms, the government and media organisations were collaborating to silence him.
He made the comments minutes after the Metropolitan Police said that they had opened an investigation into sexual offence allegations from around the country. Speaking on Rumble in an episode titled “Are we being silenced? The battle for free speech”, Brand did not directly address Scotland Yard’s statement or the specific allegations against him. He claimed that his online channel’s “individual voice” was “obviously being challenged” alongside monologues touching on the war in Ukraine and Covid-19.
Opening his Stay Free broadcast, Brand, 48, said: “We are going to be talking about the state and legacy media’s war on free speech and in particular how that has affected me this week.”
Brand has denied allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse made in the joint investigation. Four women have accused him of sexually assaulting them at the height of his career between 2006 and 2013.
Companies and charities have severed ties with Brand and the video-sharing site YouTube demonetised his channel, in a move it said was to protect users. Since the allegations emerged, Brand had not broadcast his weekday show on Rumble, which is based in North America and hosts a number of prominent figures with extreme views.
Resuming the broadcast on Monday, Brand focused on the decision of a senior Conservative to write to the website raising concerns about his ability to profit from content. Dame Caroline Dinenage, chairwoman of the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee, asked in a letter whether Rumble, where Brand has 1.4 million followers, planned to join YouTube in demonetising him. Chris Pavlovski, Rumble’s chief executive, called the letter “extremely disturbing”.
During the broadcast, Brand claimed that the “government wrote to social media platforms to demand that I be further censored”. He suggested that the government was among those trying to “bypass, repress, obstruct or absolutely ignore existing judicial or regulatory bodies”.
He continued: “The corporatist state and global media war against free speech is in full swing. Today we are talking about events of the last week but in particular the collusion between big tech and government and an apparent concerted effort by legacy media and now the state and big tech to silence individual media voices. Obviously it is difficult for me to be entirely objective given the events of the last week but that is what we will try to do.”
The Times and The Sunday Times gave Brand eight days before publication to reply to the allegations against him but he did not provide a full response. Instead Brand used Rumble to post a pre-emptive denial video, shared on other social media sites, after being approached about the allegations.
Brand has been accused of using Rumble, which has vowed not to silence him, to spread misinformation around the Covid-19 pandemic. The former television presenter repeatedly referenced the pandemic while alluding to the scrutiny he has faced over the past ten days. Brand said it was highly likely to him that “legacy media and big tech platforms are collaborating in a variety of ways” to suppress certain independent broadcasters online.
In the Rumble broadcast, Brand referenced several touchstones popular with the alt-right community, including “globalist elite dictats” and how reporting around “big pharma” was being restricted. He also lashed out at the Trusted News Initiative, a collaboration by organisations including the BBC aimed at stopping the spread of disinformation.
Beginning an interview with the YouTuber Jimmy Dore, Brand said: “Obviously, I have a new experience on the way that the media and the state can co-operate and corroborate one another’s narratives and stories.
“I am beginning to sense that if you publicly question important stories that are agenda-led, like the war in Ukraine or Covid pandemic, that it appears there is some significant heft behind controlling those narrative spaces and preventing them from being overtly challenged.”
