Defence Closes in the Russell Brand Trial, Judge Sums Up Today and the Jury Could Go Out, Plus a Second Verdict Watch in Boston

0:09 Good morning, this is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026. Yesterday, Russell Brand's barrister stood in front of the jury for the last time and said something you don't often hear a defense lawyer say about his own client. It is, he told them. lawful to be unkind while having sex. It is lawful to be disrespectful or rude or to behave like a crazy idiot. What isn't lawful, he said, is sex without consent. And on that, he said, the prosecution hasn't come close. This morning, the judge sums up and then, quite possibly today, 12 people go into a room and decide. So here's the question for today. In a case built on memories, does the defense need to prove anything at all? Let's get into it. This segment discusses allegations of rape and sexual assault. I'll keep it to what was said in court without graphic detail. The essentials.

1:13 Russell Brand, 51, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court on seven charges, three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault, involving six women between 1999 and 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them and denies all of the allegations. Everything here is from proceedings in open court, as reported by Sky News. And again, closing speeches are argument, not evidence. Brand arrived with his wife, Laura. In the gallery was her father, the golfer Bernard Gallisher. Brand's barrister, Ian Winter, delivered his closing speech standing at his desk, swiping through his notes on an iPad, chopping the air with his hand to make his points. He opened with a quote from 1864 from the writer and cardinal John Henry Newman, who accused an opponent of poisoning the wells. That, Winter told the jury, is what journalists did in this case.

2:10 He called the 2023 Channel 4 documentary one-sided and dramatic, noted that it used actors to play anonymous women, and accused the journalists of covertly recording the women they spoke to and setting their WhatsApp messages to disappear. They poisoned the well of justice, he said, by prompting these women to come forward. He told the jury, do what the journalists failed to do. Put condemnation out of your minds and apply pure coal logic to one question. Are you sure he did what's alleged? He reminded the jury of the moment Brand was barred from Great Ormond Street Hospital, where his baby son had just had heart surgery. That, Winter said, shows how far public opinion had been perverted.

2:54 If it caused doctors to shun him, he asked, how many others? People, he said, came to see events from long ago through the lens of that program. Then he took on the prosecution's central claim that six women who'd never met came forward independently. They're not random, Winter said, and they're not independent. They all came forward because of that program. He quoted the fifth complainant's own words about watching it. It was the first time I'd felt a monumental change. I got it. It wasn't me. And he asked, one wonders what her evidence would have been if she'd not seen the program. He argued that the delays in this case, as long as 27 years, were monstrous, and that justice delayed is justice denied. He asked the jurors to put their hands on their hearts. What were you doing in 1999? And he made an argument the prosecution never fully answered, in his view. Brand had sex with many, many women in this decade. Why, then, would only three say they didn't consent? Even being manipulative to get consensual sex, he said, is lawful. And he told the jury that Brand had been, in his words, completely, staggeringly honest with them on the stand. He also argued that not one of the women resisted, screamed, or tried to leave, and

4:26 that none of them confronted Brand himself. For context, in English sexual offense trials, judges commonly direct juries not to make assumptions about how a person reacts to an alleged assault. In the same way, this judge has already told them not to assume that delay or inconsistency means an allegation is untrue. How much weight to give Winters Point is entirely up to the jury. Then, count by count. On the 1999 allegation in Bournemouth, He said the woman herself second-guessed whether she'd been raped and behaved normally the next day. He suggested she kept calling her small rented room her office because calling it her bedroom would mean admitting she'd invited a stranger back to it. He dismissed the former flatmate's account of Bran ducking and diving the next morning, saying they simply had to check out by 10. And, he said, Bran left his real email address, let her take photographs of him, and tried to kiss her goodbye.

5:25 Rapists do not leave their email addresses, Winter told the jury. Rapists do not leave their photographs. On the MTV allegation, he said Brand was behaving like a crazy lunatic. But when the woman said no way, he accepted it. The prosecution had treated the jury to 20 seconds of silence, he said. But it wasn't silence. Brand, he said, was pleading, begging, and asking her to go in. And when she refused, that was the end of it. On the Soho allegation, he pointed out that after the alleged rape, the woman got into Brand's car and went with his group to another bar in Camden. Completely inconceivable, he said, if you had just been raped. And he argued her description of Brand's eyes going blank, as if he were possessed, only appeared after the program. On the Choice FM allegation, he said her account sounded more like a maniac jumping out from behind the bins. and asked why she didn't call on the people she says watched. He reminded the jury she'd described Brand as of average height. He's 6'2. On the most serious count, the fifth complainant, he called her an obsessed fan, someone whose friends wrapped her birthday presents in photos of Brand, and said her behavior in his dressing room could only be explained by that obsession. And then he made the argument at the heart of the defense.

6:46 She didn't feel she'd been raped. She felt discarded and used. He also mocked the prosecution's suggestion about the way Brand saved her number. If you thought you were going to be accused of rape someday, he asked, would you really save her contact like that? On the Channel 4 allegation, he said, it was just a massage, a thoroughly inappropriate one, but not a sexual one, and that the most important detail of her account, the one that would make it a sexual assault, wasn't in the version she first gave a journalist. And he raised a question you may have wondered about yourself. The Me Too movement was everywhere for years. How is it that none of these came to light during Me Too? He asked. They needed, he said, to be told what was in the program to make the jump.

7:33 And then his final words. It is, I am afraid, lawful to be unkind while having sex or after having sex. It is lawful to be disrespectful or rude or to behave like a crazy idiot. It is lawful unless and until it becomes non-consensual. Not one of these women, he said, called it a crime until many years later, until the well had been poisoned. We invite you to return a verdict of not guilty. So back to the question at the top. Legally, the answer is no. The defense doesn't have to prove anything. The prosecution has to make the jury sure. That's why Winter's whole speech was built around doubt.

8:15 The delay... The documentary, the details. On Friday, the prosecution told the jury these women have nothing to gain and every reason to stay silent. Yesterday, the defense told them the women didn't call it a crime until a TV show told them to. Those two stories can't both be true. Now 12 people decide which one is. This morning, the judge sums up the evidence. Then the jury goes out. We have no idea how long it'll take. And with seven separate charges, it could be days. When there's a verdict, you'll hear it here. Russell Brand denies all charges. When we come back, the defense experts in Boston and an update we owe you on the Fort Hood execution. In Boston, the trial of former Stoughton police detective Matthew Farwell is in its final week of testimony. He's accused of strangling Sandra Birchmore, who was 23 and pregnant, in February of 2021 and staging it as a suicide. Prosecutors say he'd exploited her since she was 15 and killed her to keep her from exposing him. He's pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a mandatory life sentence. Last week, the prosecution's key expert told the jury Sandra was strangled and that her apartment was an altered crime scene. Now the defense

9:46 is answering with a parade of experts of its own. On Friday, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Melissa Piasecki told the jury Sandra had multiple risk factors for suicide. The defense says that at the time of her death, she was taking an antidepressant, was isolated from her family, was in financial trouble, and was worried about whether her pregnancy would survive. Piasecki said a breakup with Farwell would have been very overwhelming for her. The defense says that on the night she died, Farwell went to her apartment to end their relationship. and to tell her he wasn't the father of her baby. Prosecutors counter that Sandra and Farwell were trying to have a baby together, believe they had, and that she had every reason to live. On Monday, the defense went after the physical evidence, especially the fractured bone in Sandra's neck that the prosecution's experts said pointed to strangulation. The defense called Dr. William Ralston, Kentucky's chief medical examiner, to respond to the prosecution's expert and Dr. Heather Garvin, a forensic anthropologist, to testify about the bone itself. Still to come, a DNA expert, a digital forensics examiner, and Dr. Thomas Andrew, the former chief medical examiner of New Hampshire, who has said he can't rule out suicide. The defense has also asked the judge to instruct the jury that it can consider failures in the original police investigation. Under questioning earlier in the trial, a state police investigator admitted Sandra's apartment

11:16 was never processed as a crime scene. And in a motion for acquittal, the defense argued that Sandra was never a witness in the legal sense, a key element of the federal charge. The judge hasn't ruled publicly on that. Defense testimony is expected to wrap up by Wednesday, with closing arguments and deliberations possible later this week. So we could be waiting on two juries at once, in London and in Boston. Sandra Birchmore was 23. Someone has to say her name. First, an update we should have brought you weeks ago. On October 13th, we led the show with the Pentagon's plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood gunman, on December 3rd.

12:02 Two days later, on October 15th, President Trump reversed that decision. In a social media post, he said the execution would still happen at Fort Hood by firing squad, but would not be streamed. Advisors were concerned a broadcast could become propaganda for anti-American groups. Hassan's lawyer, John Galligan, told the BBC the reversal didn't surprise him and called the original plan a dumb decision that violated the army's own regulations. We should have told you that sooner, and I'm sorry we didn't. The execution itself is still scheduled for December 3rd, and experts say Hassan could still try to delay it by going to federal court. The 13 people he killed and the 32 he wounded are why it matters. We'll be following it. Second, on Thursday, Florida is scheduled to execute Jesse Guardado, who's 64. In September of 2004, in Walton County in the Florida Panhandle, he killed 75-year-old Jackie Malone, a woman who had helped him find a place to live and a job after he got out of prison.

13:04 He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in 2005. His lawyers argued his trial attorneys were ineffective at sentencing. A federal appeals court rejected that in 2024. If the execution goes ahead, it'll be Florida's 19th this year, tying the state's record to set just last year. And it may not hold for long. Another execution is scheduled for November 18th, which would make 20, the most in a single year in Florida's modern history. And third, today is election day, including in Tennessee, where voters are choosing a successor to Governor Bill Lee. Whoever wins will inherit the question of Krista Pike, the woman who survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital on September 30th. Lee said last week he suspects her sentence will stay the same unless the courts decide otherwise, but it'll soon be someone else's decision.

13:56 Jackie Malone was 75. She tried to help a man start over. Someone has to say her name. When we come back, the week ahead. That's the show for this Tuesday. Here's my question for the Spotify crowd. Ian Winter asked why none of these allegations came out during the Me Too movement. Is that a fair question or not? If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment and tell me why.

14:36 If you've been following the brand trial with us, now's the time to send this to a friend before the verdict. That's how we grow. And on Apple Podcasts, tap listen uninterrupted at the top of your screen. $ 5 a month, no ads, this show plus thousands of other Calaroga media shows, and the first 30 days are free. To everyone already subscribed, thank you. Coming up, the brand jury deliberates and a verdict could come any day. In Boston, the Farwell defense rests and closing arguments begin. And Thursday night, Florida's scheduled execution. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. This episode of Daily Crime and Justice is produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and is intended for news and commentary purposes only. It is not legal advice. Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies all of the allegations against him. Matthew Farwell has pleaded not guilty. Nidal Hassan, Jesse Guardado, and Krista Pike have been convicted. Correction. Our October 13th episode reported the Pentagon's plan to livestream Nidal Hasan's execution. On October 15th, President Trump announced that the execution would not be streamed. We did not report that change at the time.

15:57 On Russell Brand, proceedings are as reported by Sky News from Southwark Crown Court. Closing speeches are argument, not evidence. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. On Sandra Birchmore, testimony is as reported by the Boston Globe, NBC Boston, Boston.com, Boston 25 News, and LA Magazine. On Nidal Hasan, as reported by ABC News, Reuters, the BBC, and Task and Purpose. On Jesse Guardado, as reported by CBS News, Fox 13, and the Tampa Bay Times. On Krista Pike, as reported by WSMV. If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, you can call RAINN at 800-656-4673. In England and Wales, you can reach Rape Crisis at 0808-500-2222. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988-