Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has criticised the “depressing” nature of the cross-examination of Russell Brand’s victims during his trial for rape and sexual assault, saying she believed the courts had “long gone past that sort of culture”.
Powell, now the education secretary, also said she regretted the meeting that the former party leader Ed Miliband had with Brand in ۲۰۱۵, when she was Labour’s campaign chief.
Brand was jailed for ۱۰ and a half years on Monday for raping a woman and sexually assaulting three others, including at their workplaces.
Powell was asked on LBC radio about Brand’s defence in court, during which his barrister, Ian Winter KC, suggested Brand must be innocent because none of his victims had “resisted or screamed or even tried to leave”. Winter also said the anal rape of a ۲۱-year-old woman by Brand was a “short and momentary failure” where “he did not respect her consent”.
Asked if that was reminiscent of the attitude of the ۱۹۵۰s, Powell said she had been “shocked” at some of what took place in the courtroom, while praising the judge’s words. “I found reading some of that incredibly sort of depressing. I thought we’d long gone past that sort of culture and that phase of things.
“And the judge’s remarks were also incredibly powerful in sentencing: that it doesn’t matter what you wear, how you behaved, how drunk you are, you know, you have the right to give your consent or not give your consent. And if it’s not given, then that is rape and that is a sexual offence, pure and simple.”
Powell said the government had taken steps in guidance to challenge myths around rape and victim-blaming. “But clearly, a lot more needs to be done because I think many of us were really shocked that that could still take place in a courtroom today,” she said.
At sentencing, the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, criticised Brand, saying the women had been subjected to additional suffering because of the conduct in court “on your instructions”.
“Whatever women wear, wherever they go, whatever they drink, they retain the right to say no and demand justice in the criminal courts when sexual predators like you, Mr Brand, act without their consent,” he said.
Powell said she and Miliband regretted that he had done an interview with Brand in ۲۰۱۵ during the hype around Revolution, Brand’s book on politics. At the time the interview took place, Brand had resigned his BBC Radio ۲ show for leaving a series of lewd messages on actor Andrew Sachs’ answerphone about his granddaughter.
“It was a long time ago, obviously, and had I or Ed Miliband or anybody at the time had any sense at all that this was someone who was a sexual predator, who was involved in these sorts of crimes,” she told Sky News, anyone who was involved in promoting him would “look back and really regret that, knowing today what we now know”.
Asked about her role in setting up the interview, Powell said she had not understood the full extent of his sexual conduct that was already in the public domain – such as in his autobiography. “If there was any suggestion at all we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time then, of course, no one would have done that.
“But as I say, he was a well-known public figure. Lots of people, from Hollywood to the BBC to many others, gave this person a very, very powerful platform.”
