Trial By Media- Dispatches

[Raining_Roses]

This isn’t a post about innocence or guilt, but rather the methods for determining it. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you would have heard about/seen the C4 Dispatches expose on Russell Brand, a well-known TV & Radio personality turned Youtube ‘conspiracy theorist’.

The yearlong by investigation by The Times and C4 produced a 90-minute program that gave accounts from victims of sexual assault perpetrated by him; witness accounts to his behaviour from crew on shows he worked on and exposed a culture of silence and protection of his crimes in the media industry. His behaviour was allegedly an ‘open secret’ among fellow comedians and crew working with him, with one male comedian coming forward, disclosing that there have been rumours about his behaviour for years and those that mentioned it or made jokes about it were quickly shut down. After one alleged assault, Brand texted his victim to apologise for his behaviour. One victim also visited a rape crisis centre the morning after she was assaulted and documentation at the time verified the account that she had alleged her perpetrator was a high-profile celebrity. Another- an ex-partner- wrote about the abuse from him in her book and did not remain anonymous. The victims, the witnesses, the circumstantial and written evidence all mounted up.

In his defence, Brand came forward before it was aired via his Youtube and X accounts to refute the accusations and state that all his sexual relationships have been consensual. In his view, he is being attacked for his anti-establishment views and opposition to the COVID vaccine. Like Andrew Tate, Elon Musk and Lawrence Fox, he is being shut down for ‘telling the truth’ by ‘the Matrix’ and as C4 collected the nights TV ratings, he was packing out Wembley, all the time avoiding the big f*cking elephant in the room.

What will happen next is anyone’s guess- will there be a very public lawsuit; a very public court case or will Brand simply disappear into obscurity for a while? He has a staunch group of followers, so while he may disappear from the wider media, he’ll no doubt live on in his ‘guru’ persona on social media (he’s a narc- he’ll have to get the attention from somewhere!).

But whatever happens next, the question is should this have happened?

It’s journalism! In journalism, the subjects rarely get a right to reply, unless through a lawsuit, so perhaps it’s not a case of trial by media, but simply good journalism. These women had made complaints in some way or other to either the companies they were working for, colleagues or the rape crisis centre, and they all knew/believed that no action would be taken by the police because of who he was. They didn’t think they would be believed. After all, in media industry, high profile perpetrators have been getting away with it for years. But there’s also Brand’s background- many, many disparaging, highly sexualised comments on air, sexual harassment of a colleague on air and a highly dubious interview with Saville in 2007. It was well-known in TV circles at that time what Saville was and Brand certainly works that reputation in the phone interview.

Yet- there has been no police investigation and bar his social media accounts, he’s had no right to reply or been offered the opportunity to put his account of the alleged incidents across. Journalism doesn't allow for such, so the one view pervading the minds of the interested public would be ‘Guilty’. After all, they become the Jury, seeing all that is reported as the facts and evidence. In our comfortable armchairs, we can condemn on the masterfully directed snippets of ‘evidence’, rather than seeing the raw, originals for ourselves and we believe we can judge on shadows and actors imitating the victim’s emotions.
We, the public, then become the Judges. We stop buying tickets for his shows, watching him on social media and effectively cancelling him.

So, do we need to be cautious about these kinds of exposes? After all, we are not the Judge’s and the Jury and unless we have both sides of the story- and consequently, both sets of evidence- should the subject of these exposes be kept confidential until the evidence is presented to the police and the case is presented in court?

 

[LadyOnArooftop]

Remember in the old days, if you were a victim of a crime you'd go straight to the police, and if there was enough evidence it would go to trial. Now, you announce it on social media, or go to the papers... This is happening more and more. Remember Mason Greenwood? And now there's a second Utd player being accused by an an ex. I read somewhere that this is just the first in a series that will accuse comedians of crimes. My top 3 stand up comedians are Brand, Chris Rock and Ricky Gervais. I hope the other two are safe! Can you separate a man's art from his crime? I do hope so...

 

[Raining_Roses]

I think Ricky Gervais is safe. Chris Rock, not so sure of, but Ricky- that would be bloody surprising! Never say never, but I don't get the same 'creep' vibe seeping from him as other's we've seen accused.

I'm of the camp that doesn't see these offences as surprising. I'm not a fan of his at all- he was a staunch Corbin voter (*shudder) and I couldn't see the humour in him- he just tended to come across as a sex-obsessed, attention-seeker, rather than 'funny'. It was Benny Hill humour and tbh, the only time I didn't switch off was when he was on the Jonathan Ross show once.

But I do have questions over the method of outing him. Should the accused be kept anonymous until the findings of the 'media' investigation are handed over to the police and they've undertaken their investigation? This doesn't only affect him, but his wife and his children, who are innocent parties. When the media does an expose, they open up their subject to unfair public trail and everyone connected to them is also thrown into the public eye. There were a number of ways they could have kept his identity a secret, yet given so many clues it was obvious. It would have then been nothing more public speculation.

If the reason for exposing his identity was to bring more victims forward, then they could have given him a right to reply on what's been said in the very public sphere. If someone is arrested for a crime, they at least get the interview to give their statement or response to the accusations, and I would have liked to have seen that. It's not like the Saville case- he was dead when it all came out- so I wonder if Dispatches could have given Brand 5 minutes at the end, after letting him see what was going to be aired earlier that day, or maybe a nice little action bit, where they confronted him with the allegations and filmed his reactions. Instead, he got a couple of letters forewarning him of the type of allegations that were coming and he got to put out his 'defence'.

 

[LadyOnArooftop]

I didn't watch Dispatches or read any of the tittle-tattle in the papers. I'm only going off snippets I've seen on the news. I had to laugh when they said he was hiding in plain sight, quite the reverse, he was letting everyone know what a loathsome, sex obsessed man he is. Whether any of this ever goes to trial or not, he needs to be castrated castigated for dating a 16 year old, no one over 17 should be dating a 16 year old.

 

[Raining_Roses]

I didn't watch Dispatches or read any of the tittle-tattle in the papers. I'm only going off snippets I've seen on the news. I had to laugh when they said he was hiding in plain sight, quite the reverse, he was letting everyone know what a loathsome, sex obsessed man he is. Whether any of this ever goes to trial or not, he needs to be castrated castigated for dating a 16 year old, no one over 17 should be dating a 16 year old.

I did watch the Dispatches program and it was very well investigated, but I've only glanced over the tittle-tattle in the papers by way of an update to see whether a police investigation was going to be pursued. I'm not interested in the hyperbolic stories (eg.: "OMG he once touched my knee on air! ASSAULT").

As a 30-odd yr old man, there are massive red flags in dating a 16 yr old, especially a man with his status and power. It may not have been illegal, but it was definitely an abuse of power. It's nefarious for a man to want to date a child, which at 16 they are still a child in every way. They are still physically developing, never mind still developing mentally and emotionally.

He was definitely being protected and I agree- he was quite open and honest about how much of a misogynistic creep he was and it appears most of the women on the comedy circuit were listening, yet the big bosses weren't. Even Bob Geldof knew he was a c*nut.

 

[Moriarty]

It's funny this didn't happen when John Lyndon outed Saville as a pedo back in 1978.
His first "offence" was in 1959 when he apparently raped a 13 year old girl at Lime Grove Studios.

Only took the media over 50 years to report that.

I'm sorry Rains, but this..
"It's nefarious for a man to want to date a child, which at 16 they are still a child in every way"
Is just so wrong.
Ask any of those schoolboys who have had sexual relations with thier female teachers, I wonder how many of those see themselves a victims.
I personally know of 2 girls who slept with teacher's when I was at school, they bragged about it happily.

Age difference is something people get bent out of shape over because they can.
In reality we can all form relationships with whoever we want.
When I was 18 I had a serious relationship with an awaiting divorce women 10 years older than me, no one said a thing about that.
Yet when I was 21 I had relationship with a 16 year old, that is such a no-no.

No one would bother to ask if we slept together when I stayed at her parent house on the weekends, we didn't as I was usually up until 4am talking about cars and bikes with her dad and brother, plus getting drunk with them.
When she stayed at my place she had a seperate bedroom and my mother stalked the halls, not that it bothered me, we were waiting anyway.

People need to lighten the feck up.

Brands an asshole, always has been, I dont like the guy and I believe he thinks to highly of himself.

That however is a long way from rapist.

Let the courts decide, preferably without the media announcing his guilt over what is circumstantial evidence.