Russell Brand Trial: All Six Women Have Now Been Cross-Examined, Kohberger’s Lawyers Point to the Judge’s Tears, Gloves and Air Freshener

0:03 Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Thursday, October 22nd, 2026. Yesterday in London, from behind a blue screen, a woman who says Russell Brand raped her in 2009 faced his barrister. He told her she'd known all about Brand's reputation. He told her she'd agreed to what happened. He read her a tax brand sent her months later. And at one point, she shot back. We are not here to discuss my morality. Here's today's question. In a trial about consent, how much is a jury allowed to hear about the woman and not just the man? Let's get into it. A quick warning.

0:55 This segment discusses an allegation of rape. I'll keep it out of the graphic territory, but it's adult material. And first, the essentials. Russell Brand, who is 51, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court on seven charges, including three counts of rape 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 evidence in open court, as reported by Sky News. Brand arrived yesterday the way he has every day, his minder out of the car first, then Brand in a tweed coat over a gray suit with an open white shirt and a black and white necktie, and his wife Laura in a pinstripe suit, both in sunglasses. Inside, Sky's reporters noticed something new. Brand, who usually sits poker straight facing the room, turned himself toward the small screen in the dock to watch the woman's police interview more closely. Yesterday I told you about the fifth complainant. She says she met Brand after his show at the Hammersmith Apollo in early 2009, had a consensual encounter with him in his dressing room, then went to his house in Hampstead a week later expecting to sleep with him, and that after consensual sex, he raped her. Yesterday, the jury watched the rest of her police interview. In it, she says there was what she called a moment of stalling, that he removed the condom without telling her and then did it. She says she told him over and over, can you stop? Can you stop? And she said she

2:27 bled for days afterward. She also listed the people she says she told, friends, her boyfriend, both of her parents, a colleague, and several managers. Then the jury saw a second, shorter police interview, recorded in August of last year. In it, she described seeing Brand again the following summer at the Edinburgh Festival where she was working. She says he texted her. She replied, why are you even texting me? And she says Brand wrote back, because you're dirty and I want to push you further. Her reply, I think you pushed me far enough. You treated me like an animal. She says his answer came back immediately. I'm sorry. She told police the message made her feel completely degraded, like a piece of meat. Then came the cross-examination by Brand's barrister, Ian Winter. He started with her feelings for Brand. She told a Times journalist back in 2019 that she had completely adored him and been obsessed with him. She agreed that was true. Did those feelings cloud her judgment? No, she said immediately. She said she made a decision she has really lived to regret. Then Winter put Brand's reputation to her. Did she know he was extremely sexually active with multiple women? That he'd been named the Sun Newspaper's Shagger of the Year three years running? That at his shows, women were throwing their bras at him? He told the jury the Hammersmith show itself was extremely sexually explicit and

3:57 full of references to the sex Bran was having at the time. She said she didn't throw anything and couldn't remember the details of the act. He reminded her that she'd told police, quote, very fairly, that she went to Bran's house knowing they would have sex and that it would be the final nail in the coffin for her relationship. She agreed. When he asked if she'd normally have been intimate with someone she'd only just met, she said, If he had not been the person he was, the answer is no. And the judge himself asked whether she thought she was going to be Bran's girlfriend. No, she said. I didn't think I was going to be his girlfriend.

4:37 On the shower, Winter suggested Brand asked her to shower and brush her teeth because he could smell alcohol on her. She said what he actually told her was that he didn't like the smell of her hair and that she couldn't remember him mentioning alcohol. Then he reached the heart of it. The defense case is that before they had sex, they talked about it. That she told him she'd never done it before and that what happened afterward was consensual and brief. She flatly denied any such conversation. I did not agree to do that, she said. Then he went after a detail in her story. In her police interview, she said Brand told her to clean up the mess. But Winter said that when she spoke to the Times journalist years earlier, she said it was a different man, the one who led her into the house who told her to clean up. Her answer, when she spoke to that journalist, she was in active addiction, and she doesn't remember the details about that man. And then the text. Why?

5:35 Winter asked, when Brand texted her in Edinburgh, didn't she write back, you raped me? He put it to her directly. Brand pushed you and probably treated you like an animal, but he had not raped you. She pushed back, you're putting words that I should have said into my mouth. At one point, when Winter suggested Brand acted normally afterward because nothing wrong had happened, she said, I did not consent. We are not here to discuss my morality. She acknowledged she hadn't painted herself in a great light, that she cheated on her boyfriend, and that going to Brand's house was a big mistake. And she said the defense was making her feel the same thing she'd felt for years. Like, she brought it on herself. On reexamination, Prosecutor Real Carmi Jones asked her the simplest questions. Was there any conversation beforehand? No.

6:29 Any warning? No. Did you ask him to stop? Yes. Did he show you any kindness afterward? There wasn't kindness, she said. But there wasn't any unkindness either. And when the prosecutor raised the defense's point that Brand acted normally, she said, He wasn't acting like someone who had just raped someone. He acted like nothing had happened. With that, the jury has now heard the evidence of all six women. The trial resumes this morning. Now back to the question I asked at the top. In English courts, questions about a complainant's sexual history are tightly restricted and generally need the judge's permission. So when you hear a barrister asking a woman about her feelings for a celebrity or about what happened between them in his dressing room, the court has allowed it as relevant to what happened between those two people. That's the line this trial is walking. The defense says context is everything, and she says the context doesn't change the one moment she says she didn't consent to.

7:28 That's for the jury. I'm keeping my promise. No opinions until a verdict. Russell Brand denies all charges. When we come back, Brian Koberger's judge and his tears. A week ago, I told you the judge in Brian Koberger's case canceled a hearing on whether he should step aside. Now Koberger's lawyers have filed again, and they've added something new. Quick refresher. Koberger pleaded guilty in July of 2025 to murdering four University of Idaho students in November of 2022, and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms. He now says he's innocent, that his lawyers misled him into pleading guilty, and that Judge Stephen Hippler, who sentenced him, should be taken off the case. At sentencing, Hippler called him a faceless coward and the worst of the worst, and said that even if Koberger could be forced to speak, no one could be assured that what he said was the truth. Koberger's appellate lawyer, Gregory Rauch, says those words alone don't require the judge to step aside. But in his new filing, Rauch adds something else. A report from People magazine that Hippler appeared to wipe away tears during the sentencing. The filing is careful. It acknowledges that tears alone don't require disqualification, and that Koberger isn't asking the court to be unmoved

9:00 by four deaths. The argument, in Rauch's words, is about, quote, the complete presentation, the emotion, the personal language, and the judge's stated doubt that Koberger can tell the truth at a moment when Koberger is asking that same judge to believe him. And Rauch says something I think is a smart line. A request for an impartial adjudicator is certainly not a request for a sympathetic one. Prosecutors say Idaho law requires the sentencing judge to hear exactly this kind of challenge, and that strong words at sentencing are part of a judge's job, not proof of bias. I said last week I don't think harsh words at sentencing should be enough to remove a judge. A moment of human emotion after listening to four families describe their children doesn't change my mind. But this will be up to Judge Hippler, and no new hearing date has been set. Madison Mogan, Kaylee Goncalves, Zana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. Someone has to say their names. On Tuesday, I told you about the trial of Naresh Bhatt in Prince William County, Virginia, accused of murdering his wife, Mamta Kafle Bhatt, whose body has never been found. This week, jurors watched him go shopping.

10:19 Prosecutors believe Mamta was killed on July 30, 2024, at the couple's home. On Monday, they played surveillance video. A Home Depot employee testified that Pott came into her store that same day and bought a pair of garden gloves. He asked about pricing, she said. He compared the prices of different gloves before choosing one pair. The next day, July 31st, Walmart video shows him spending several minutes in the household cleaning aisle, picking out cleaning spray and disinfecting wipes. At self-checkout, he bought those, along with bananas, an air freshener, and Febreze. And on August 1st, video shows him at a gas station, throwing items into several different trash cans.

11:02 A friend of Mamta's, who lived with her when she first arrived from Nepal, testified that pot was controlling. that he didn't want Mamta leaving the apartment at all. And she said that after Mamta disappeared at a birthday party for the couple's child, Pot approached her and said he needed to tell her something. I didn't want to be alone with him, she testified, so I never found out. Bot, who is 49 and a former soldier, told police his wife left on her own and may have gone to Texas or New York. Investigators say they found no evidence she left willingly. His defense told jurors there's no evidence connecting him to her presumed death and urged them not to rush to judgment. Buying cleaning supplies isn't a crime, and the defense will remind the jury of that. The question is what it means when you put it next to everything else. Mamta Kaflibat was 28, a pediatric nurse and a new mother. Someone has to say her name.

12:00 When we come back, the week ahead. That's the show for this Thursday. Question for the Spotify crowd. In a rape trial, should a jury hear about a complainant's own choices that night or only about the moment she says she didn't consent? If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment. If you're following the brand trial with us, send this episode to a friend. That's how we grow. And on Apple Podcasts, tap listen uninterrupted at the top of your screens. $ 5 a month, no ads, this show plus thousands of other Calaroga media shows, and the first 30 days are free.

12:46 To everyone already subscribed, thank you. Coming up, the prosecution continues its case against Russell Brand in London. In Boston, the government's medical experts are still to come in the Birchmore trial. And we're watching for a new hearing date for Brian Koberger. 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. Naresh Bhat has pleaded not guilty. Brian Koberger's claims are allegations in a post-conviction petition and have not been tested in court. On Russell Brand, accounts of evidence are as reported by Sky News from Southwark Crown Court and are allegations and questions put in court, not findings of fact. Statements put to the witness by the defense are the defense's case and are disputed. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. Our description of English rules on questioning complainants is a general summary.

14:08 On Brian Koberger and Naresh Bhat, details are as reported by Court TV. 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 experiencing domestic violence, The National Domestic Violence Hotline is at 1-800-799-7233.