Look what the cat dragged in...

Mr Brand as photographed
by By Gage Skidmore 

As the Russell Brand trial reaches it's conclusion I have heard a number of people arguing that women only came forward because of his fame and that he is a victim of some kind of recent media witch hunt.  But strange rumours have surrounded Brand for much longer.  I keep thinking of the incident that took place at the 2006 Fringe Festival which resulted in Trevor Lock being charged with rape.  

A lady went back to Brand's flat after his show at the Assembly Rooms but didn't remember anything that happened.  What she did know was that when she woke up she thought she had been raped.  But who by?  Trevor Lock was arrested by Lothian and Borders police and soon the Chortle Forums which were then the PHP place to get gigs in the UK were filled with people saying that Lock could not be the rapist.  This seemed odd to me as how would you know?  I mean, he seemed perfectly normal and polite to me and one of those people who deal in whimsical surrealism... but how would I know what he is capable of?  I only know what I've seen on stage and what I have gleaned from very casual and very brief encounters.  

To be fair I have actually spoken to Trevor Lock but I'd hardly make a convincing character witness.  Although I've probably been in the same room as Mr Brand I don't think I've ever spoken to him.  He was ... let's say ...busy ... and I had no desire to.  As I didn't know anything and still don't know anything I didn't say anything about the Lock incident but I have decided today nearly 20 years later to say that I do think it is foolish the way mostly men rush to the defence of other men in this situation.  And that's  all I have to say.  

Not that I'm an ardent feminist or anything.  Last time someone accused someone of rape at one of my workplaces I thought it best not to get involved in any way.  How could I help either of the parties?  Best to shut your cakehole and let plod do their job.  If I wanted to deal with all the dirty work in society I'd have become...  Anyway what do I know?  Nothing.  So what can I do?  Nothing.  I mean, even writing this 20 years later I'm doubtful of the utility of going down this dark cul-de-sac... besides which doing and saying nothing suits my natural character - that of a coward.

As it was the Procurator Fiscal could not make a case stand up against Lock or anyone else.  I would say he was aquitted but there wasn't even enough evidence to mount a trial and so the case quietly died. 

 Never-the-less the lady in question who was a teenager clearly thought something untoward had happened to her or why would she have gone to the police and undergone the humiliation of a physical examination for forensic evidence?  A contemporaneous report can be found here where the Star Newspaper seems to make light of these somewhat shocking goings on and refers to Mr Brand as a "legendary swordsman".  And they say romance is dead...

All of this is old gossip but there does seem to me to be a lot of old gossip ... and there's plenty more where that came from.... what about the time in 2012 when Brand was admonished by Billy Connolly for sexually harassing a wardrobe assistant by refusing to shoot unless she removed her top?  Then there was extra who claimed sexual assult on the set of the film Arthur?  Whether such allegations are prosecutable I could not say but the idea currently being mooted that these kind of allegations have only just surfaced is a load of old nonsense.  

There was always a dark cloud and that is probably why Brand's film career fizzled out.  He became a risk no one wanted to take.  And thus he ended up largely on social media.  First producing a left wing podcast with Johann Hari who was then looking to rehabilitate himself after a small cloud of plagerism allegations had gathered over him and later pallying up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.- his views seeming to change as quickly as his funding streams...

Even if he is innocent one struggles to find anything in Mr Brand's behaviour to like...