R.pert 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇵🇱🇪🇪🇸🇪🇫🇮 forrin despondent

A “Free Russell Brand” graphic from US lawyer Joseph McBride (@mcbridelawnyc) is circulating. It gets the numbers right and almost everything else wrong. Yes, Brand was sentenced to 10 years and six months, for one rape and three sexual assaults against four women between 2004 and 2009. No CCTV, no DNA, no police reports at the time? All true, and all normal in historic sexual offence cases. Many of the so-called ‘grooming gang’ prosecutions rested largely on victims’ testimony years after the event, and few of the people sharing this poster called those convictions a hit job. English law doesn’t require physical evidence, and DNA proves little when the defence is consent. Delayed reporting is common, and juries are told it doesn’t mean an account is false. One woman did complain at the time: the Channel 4 worker reported Brand in 2009, and Channel 4’s own review later confirmed it was never properly investigated. “Selectively presented text messages”? Brand had a top KC, gave evidence himself, and explained the exchange to the jury. The graphic offers nothing to back the claim. “Political hit job”? The jury acquitted him of two rapes and an attempted indecent assault. A jury doing a hit job doesn’t acquit on the most serious counts. The judge also rejected his lawyers’ argument that a fair trial was impossible. If Brand or anyone else thinks the trial was unfair, the Court of Appeal is the place to argue it, not a poster on social media.