Note: to be very clear this is NOT an article in support of Russell Brand’s supposed actions. This is an article about the human rights of everyone and the rights and wrongs of “trial by media”.
On Saturday 16th September 2023, following some trailering online which resulted in wrongful allegations online against various other media personalities [who we’re not going to name here – Ed.], Channel 4 Dispatches programme and The Times newspaper revealed serious and likely criminal allegations against media personality Russell Brand.
In essence, the allegations surround Brand allegedly sexually assaulting and raping specific women.
The allegations are of a historical variety.
One allegation surrounds sexual activity with an allegedly then 16 year old girl who claims that whilst the activity was consensual she was “mentally abused” by Brand and also picked up from school by drivers for him.
Whilst not making any judgement whatsoever on the specific allegations themselves, it is very clear that Brand admits to having being very “promiscuous” and was addicted to hard drugs for a long period of time. None of the alleged victims appeared on camera, i.e. they were played by actors or in silhouette.
What is, however, exceptionally concerning, and has some parallels with the Carl Beech fiasco, is that it would appear that the accusers of Brand have not taken their allegations to the police first and nor have Channel 4 or the Times it seems. There is a gross dereliction of basic duty in that lack of reporting to the police by C4 and Times. Had they done so there is every chance that the police would’ve asked for a delay in transmission whilst they investigated properly.
Echoes of Exaro News and exclusivity reporting?
The fact that the trailering activities of the programme and newspaper exposure resulted in other individuals being accused as being involved demonstrates a clear danger to innocent individuals too. Those individuals were only sucked into the issues because of speculation [wrongful too] as a result of the trailering. Those individuals would have every right to go after the various idiotic individuals who decided to accuse them falsely, those individuals may have cases against C4 etc for the incitement caused by the trailing.
We had hoped that the days of trial by media were dying out.
Whatever Brand has or hasn’t done, it is not for such serious and criminal allegations to be played out in the public domain first. The police now have a major problem because even if they do get involved much of the evidence which they may need to rely upon if they were to build a case against Brand is already public.
What chance of a fair trial, if Brand is ever charged with offences?
Brand, again regardless of what he has or hasn’t done, has a human right of “innocent until proven guilty” but what chance has he now of using that right? Once the media have determined that there is a “case” to answer, the mob, online at least, will likely damn that person for life.
Basically he’s now effectively damned, labelled as a rapist and sexual offender and that labeling is going to be exceptionally difficult to remove without a court case of some kind.
Regardless of what views we all may have about Brand, the offences he is accused of, whether we believe or don’t believe his accusers, whether we like or loathe his views, there is something very fundamentally wrong with trial by media.
Why?
Because media outlets can get things very, very wrong.
The Carl Beech/Operation Midland fiasco is still too current for us all to forget that issue. Similarly, Sky News/Exaro activity with Esther Baker’s false allegations which still have ongoing repercussions in the High Court for at least one supporter of Baker [the supporter who we have observed making some very serious mistakes online in recent days/weeks including incitement to effectively have lynch mobs on the back of allegations alone and that the supporter’s assessment of allegations (not a court) is more appropriate to exposure and finger pointing].
The right thing for C4 and The Times to have done would’ve been to actively encourage and even actively help the accusers to take their allegations directly to the police FIRST [if they did not do so] and allow the police time to investigate those allegations, then if the police decided to take no action because of lack of evidence etc then to possibly publish the allegations.
The Metropolitan Police stated over the weekend that whilst they were aware of the allegations no-one had made a complaint including the media outlets themselves.
We have seen that finger pointing happen again more recently than Beech in the case of Ellie Williams falsely accusing various men in the area of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria and a whole online media frenzy around her allegations which were later debunked. Williams and Beech are both behind bars.
Williams didn’t accuse high profile individuals demonstrating that it can happen at any level.
Both cases, Williams and Beech, demonstrate the clear dangers of simply “belief” in allegations, no matter how gross or offensive those allegations are. “Believe the victim” policies were abandoned because of cases like Beech’s and the supposed plans to bring them back will result in more and more innocent individuals falling foul of scheming and manipulation.
The more that trial by media is allowed to become the norm, the greater the chances of innocent people being damned merely on the back of finger pointing exercises. That is not so say that the Brand allegations don’t necessarily have any substance but to say that there are correct and incorrect ways of handling such allegations.
We do NOT need the media to play along with such.
Why?
Because it could be you dear reader who is falsely accused next. Regardless of fame or fortune if people are damned for life basically on the back of “finger pointing” and the sort of ludicrous “lynch mob” mentality being exhibited on social media this morning then our society will fall apart.
Not just the establishment or celebrities, everyone would be in danger.
There is NO public interest in the repetition of false allegations [as detailed in a high court ruling against Esther Baker]:
“There is no public interest in allowing an untrue allegation to be republished”
Which effectively removes the “public interest” line of defence for libel cases by the way. The full ruling is here.
We suspect that the following may come back to bite a certain supporter of Baker on the derriere too:
Time of that order: 19th November 2019… ooops: “others acting on her behalf“
The connection between supporter and Baker is more than well established.
We are using that as an example here to say that repetition of what are false allegations in the respect of the other names accused prior to transmission in the Brand case is NOT in the public interest.
However, if you take that “trial by media” to the ultimate stage then it would lapse into total fascism where “special police” would drag people out of their homes in the middle of the night just because someone with a grudge against that person made a false allegations and the “special police” believed them i.e. guilty until proven innocent or guilt by finger-pointing.
What then? Person jailed, sent to a “camp” and/or exterminated?
History teaches us that slippery slope is dangerous. Very dangerous.
So does art teach us the same thing btw:
Whether Brand committed the offences he is now very publicly accused of is not up to you, us nor anyone, including the media, other than the courts to decide. You can draw your own private conclusions from such but what is happening on social media is something else entirely.
Now spare a thought for those possible other victims of such crimes, have Dispatches and The Times effectively wrecked any ongoing police investigations into Brand’s alleged behaviour?
Did they care or check with every single police force first?
The Met have denied any investigation so far (at time of publication of this article) but what about the other police forces in the country?
Whilst wrongdoing by people in positions of trust and power does need to be exposed, it needs to be done properly and without endangering the course of justice or indeed innocent individuals being falsely accused or dragged in because of some media or social media frenzy.
We live in radically different times to the 1970s etc when newspapers were often the primary sources of news stories, news is now instant via dedicated news channels on tv, via social media, via apps etc, the dangers of getting things wrong are therefore greater and more responsibility needs to be taken as a result.
Some still it seems haven’t learnt that lesson.
Before “trial by media” becomes the complete norm, we need a Leveson II type public inquiry into media and social media activity surrounding serious criminal allegations together with extremist ideas such as use of vigilantes and lynch mobs.
Otherwise, it could be you next with the target on your head and you’d be expected to prove your innocence not the other way around, i.e. you’d be assessed in the public eye as guilty until proven innocent.
How is that proper justice?
Spin-vs-Truth 