The complainant told jurors on Friday she met Brand in 2001 when she worked at MTV.

She said she recognised him straight away and said there was “banter” between them initially.

After noticing his “distinctive T-shirt” with the words “I am Spartacus”, she told Brand she “loved it” and wanted it.

“He said, ‘you can have it'”, the woman told the jury, to which she said she replied: “Make sure it gets a good wash first.”

Brand then asked her for directions to the bathroom.

The woman, who was in her thirties at the time, said she offered to show him the way because she was going in the same direction.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC asked her what happened next.

She said his “demeanour changed” when they got to the bathroom door.

“He grabbed my forearm, he was leaning into the door and he was quite forceful,” she said, adding that it took her “unaware”.

Asked by the prosecutor what she meant by his demeanour changing, the witness said: “He grabbed me by the arm, started to pull me in.”

She said Brand then said to her “come on” while still holding her forearm.

The woman said while Brand was trying to pull her into the bathroom, she was trying to pull herself away.

“I said to him, ‘What are you doing, are you mad, let me go’… and then he started to… plead almost,” she said.

The woman told the court she managed to “wrench” herself from Brand’s grip because of her own strength.

She told jurors Brand went from “jovial, affable, friendly to suddenly turning into this wild-eyed manic so I was quite confused this was happening, as anyone would be”.

Asked by the prosecutor why she did not report what had happened to her employer, she said: “I was scared… I thought it would be my word against his.”

But she did tell two of her colleagues, she said.

Jurors heard that she reported the allegation to the police in 2023 after watching a Channel 4 documentary about Brand.

“I thought it was the right thing to do to come forward,” she told the court.

Brand’s barrister challenged the complainant on the fact that she did not report Brand for what he had allegedly done until after watching the documentary.

“You didn’t think there was any need to report him,” Ian Winter KC said.

“It would have been my word against his,” she replied. “He didn’t manage to rape me. I managed to get out of the situation.”

The defence barrister said: “It was only after you saw the television programme that you think he was trying to rape you in the toilet.”

The woman responded: “Why else would you drag someone into the toilet if you weren’t going to assault them.”

Winter KC continued: “Twenty-two years before that, you hadn’t thought he was trying to get you in there to rape you…”

The woman denied that, adding: “You don’t grab someone by the arm. You don’t grip someone and try to drag them in, that’s not consensual.”



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