Russell Brand Trial: The Jury Has Now Heard From All Six Women, Sandra Birchmore’s Texts Read in Court, Florida Executes William Reaves

0:03 Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Wednesday, October 21st, 2026. Yesterday in Court 3 at Southwark Crown Court in London, a jury heard from three more women who accused Russell Brand. A woman who says he pinned her to a wall at a radio station while four people watched and did nothing. a woman who says she was told to give him a massage in front of his colleagues or he'd stop working, and a woman who says he picked her out of a crowd at one of his shows, invited her to his house, and raped her. That means the jury has now heard from all six. Brand denies every charge. So the question hanging over this trial, now that the accusers have spoken, how does a jury weigh six stories from 20 years ago, from women who say they never knew each other? Let's get into it. A word before we start.

1:06 This segment describes allegations of rape and sexual assault. I won't be graphic, but if you need to skip ahead, now's the time. And the essentials, every time. Russell Brand, who is 51, is on trial on seven charges. Three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault, involving six women between 1999 and 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them. He told police in 2023 that he has never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity and that the accounts had been reinvented or imagined after what he called a defamatory documentary. Everything I'm about to tell you comes from evidence given in open court, as reported by Sky News, whose reporters are in the room every day. Let's start with Monday and the third woman. She worked in television. She told the jury she met Brand at a bar in Soho in central London in 2004, and that less than a minute after they met, he started groping her. Her thought at the time, she said, was, what are you doing? I've literally just met you. She alleges he then pulled her into a toilet and forced her into a sex act, which is the basis of one of the rape charges.

2:19 On cross-examination, Brand's barrister, Ian Winter, asked why she didn't report it until 2023. She said she was afraid she wouldn't be believed. Then yesterday morning, the fourth woman. She was working at a London radio station called Choice FM in the summer of 2004 or 2005. She told the jury Brand was a perfect stranger to her, though she knew his face from Big Brother. She says he came at her as she left a room, said aye aye, grabbed her face, and walked her backward until she was pinned against a wall, kissing her and running his hands over her body. She called it frenzied, and she said three men and a woman who were with him just stood there and did nothing. She says she pushed him off and told him, loudly and in no uncertain terms, to get away from her, and that Brand fell back and laughed. Under cross-examination, Winter pressed her on inconsistencies in her earlier accounts. How many men were there, and exactly when it happened? She said it was over 20 years ago.

3:23 He challenged how she could be sure it was Brand if he was a perfect stranger. She answered that she knew his face and that the person who assaulted her was Russell Brand. Then, becoming tearful, she told the jury she doesn't gain a single thing by being there. Asked why she never reported it, she described a workplace where women were rated by colleagues on how they looked and where, she said, management would have told her she was lucky. She called it a culture of fear around upsetting an A-lister. When the prosecutor asked her on re-examination whether she'd ever doubted who assaulted her, she said, Never, never, no doubt at all. The sixth woman testified next, from behind a screen.

4:07 In 2009, she was in her late 20s and working at Channel 4, where Brand was recording a project. She says he was in good humor in the morning while a group of children visited. But after they left, she said, the atmosphere changed. Brand became unhappy, said he didn't like the sound of the producer's voice and would only speak to her. She told the jury about him clowning around by the water cooler and did an impression of him in a high-pitched voice. I'm a calculator, look at me. Then, she says, two of his male colleagues told her Brand would only keep working if she gave him a massage. She thought they were joking. When Brand came back, she says, he lay down with his head in her lap, his face pressed between her legs, and said, Come on, then.

4:51 She told the jury she looked to the men in the room for help, and they gestured back at her as if to say, well, are you going to do it? Repulsed, she says, she blurted out that he was so bony. The men laughed. Russell didn't laugh, though, she said. She says he then asked her crudely whether she was a man or a woman and answered his own question. Questionable. She says she reported it to her line manager at the time. On cross-examination, Winter pointed out that she told a journalist in 2023 that she'd been wearing a chunky jumper and jeans that day and told the court loose black trousers. She said she'd since had time to think about it more carefully and that the trousers were right. Then, in the afternoon, the jury began watching the recorded police interview of the fifth woman, whose allegation is one of the rape charges. She told police she was in her early 20s and a massive comedy fan when she went to see Brand at the Hammersmith Apollo in early 2009. Her dad had bought the tickets. After the show, she says, Brand walked through the foyer, pointed at her and her friend, and said, you. Security came over and invited them upstairs.

6:02 She was very clear with police about what happened next. In his dressing room, there was sexual activity involving her, Brand, and another woman. And she says all of it was consensual. Afterwards, she says he asked why she hadn't slept with him. She told him she had a boyfriend. And she says he told her, quote, We are free beings. All we want to do is give love. She said she came out feeling awful. Over the next week, she says, Bran messaged her again and again, telling her he would make her feel happy and safe. Things with her boyfriend had fallen apart, and she agreed to go to his house in Hampstead in North London. expecting to have sex with him. When she arrived, she says, he told her it was the best decision she'd ever made. Then, upstairs, he told her she needed to shower because her hair smelled and watched her while she did. Then he told her to brush her teeth. A toothbrush was already laid out. She told police it made her feel dirty. The jury was shown police photographs of the bedroom and bathroom. She says they then had consensual sex and that he used a condom when she asked. And then she says, without asking and without her consent, he raped her. She told police she said stop, quietly at first and then loudly, and that she was in so much pain she felt she couldn't speak or breathe. Afterwards, she says, he looked horrified, but instead of apologizing, told her to clean up the mess.

7:31 She says he turned on the TV, took a phone call, and left within about five minutes because he had a show to do. a driver took her home and handed her tissues. She told police she went to a sexual health clinic, terrified she might have contracted HIV, and got the all clear. She told her mom and her dad, who was devastated because he'd bought the tickets. In the years that followed, she said she struggled with alcohol and went to rehab. She contacted police in 2025, and she said every time Brand's name is in the news, she feels angry and asks herself, Why do I still feel small? Through all of it, according to Sky's reporters, Brand sat almost motionless in the dock in a black shirt, a black silk waistcoat, and a white scarf, hands in his lap, staring straight ahead. His wife, Laura, who has been in court most days, sat in the public gallery. Sky reports she took notes in a small black book, at times shook her head, and at one point looked.

8:31 Toward the dock as if to catch his eye. He didn't look back. Today, the jury will see the rest of that police interview, and then the fifth woman is expected to face cross-examination from Brand's defense. That's likely to be the most important day of the trial so far. I said at the start of this trial that I'd keep my opinions to myself until there's a verdict, and I will. But I'll tell you the shape of what the jury now has to decide. The prosecution's case is six women who say they never met each other, describing a similar pattern across a decade. The defense's case is that these are memories from 20 years ago with inconsistencies in the details that only surfaced after a television documentary. The jury will weigh it all.

9:13 Russell Brand denies all charges. When we come back, the text Sandra Birchmore sent the man accused of killing her and an execution in Florida. Yesterday, I told you about the federal trial of Matthew Farwell, the former Stoughton, Massachusetts police detective accused of killing Sandra Birchmore in 2021. Before I bring you the latest, two things I should have included. First, I told you the state medical examiner ruled Sandra's death a suicide. That was the original ruling. In April of this year, the medical examiner's office changed the manner of death to undetermined. Second, I told you prosecutors say Farwell's DNA was found on the strap around her neck. The defense says that strap carried DNA from several people, not just Farwell, and that her clothing showed no tears or other signs of a struggle.

10:13 Both of those belong in the story, and now they're in it. Now, Monday's testimony. An FBI agent walked the jury through years of text messages between the two of them, and they told a story of a relationship that was, by turns, desperate, controlling, and bitter. According to the Boston Globe, in 2020, Sandra asked Farwell whether he'd be okay if she got pregnant. He replied, not really, but you made it clear. I don't have an option. The messages also included her threats to expose their relationship to his wife. She even drafted a message to his wife telling her he'd been cheating since before their marriage. In December, she learned she was pregnant and texted him. Congrats, we are going to be parents in 2021. Last week, an FBI forensic examiner told the jury that Sandra's phone stopped moving at 9.40 p.m. on February 1st, 2021, the night prosecutors say Farwell killed her. He also found a list of baby names in her phone's notes app. The last name on the list was Matthew. For the prosecution, this is motive. A married police officer trapped by a pregnancy and a relationship that began when she was 15, and a young woman threatening to tell the world. For the defense, the same messages show a turbulent relationship with a woman in emotional distress. Farwell's lawyers say he wore a mask to her building that night to hide an affair, not a murder, and that he went to break up

11:44 with her, and that she took her own life afterward. The trial continues, and the government's medical experts are still to come. Sandra Birchmore was 23 years old. Someone has to say her name. Last night in Florida, the state executed William Reeves. Reeves was 77. In September of 1986, Indian River County Sheriff's Deputy Richard Ratzkowski responded to a 911 call at a convenience store near Vero Beach. Reeves later acknowledged he'd made the call himself from a payphone outside. While the two of them talked according to court records, a gun fell out of Reeves' shorts. They struggled over it.

12:28 Reeves got control of the gun and as the deputy tried to run away, shot him four times. Deputy Raczkowski was 29. Reeves was convicted and sentenced to death a year later. That conviction was thrown out because one of the prosecutors had once been his defense lawyer. He was convicted again and resentenced to death in 1992. His lawyer's final argument was about who he was before that night. Reeves served in Vietnam. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs rated him 100% disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his service there. His lawyers say the jury that sentenced him to death never heard that.

13:10 More than 100 veterans wrote to Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday asking him to stop the execution. On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his last appeal without comment. The Associated Press reports the curtain went up at 6 p.m. Asked if he had a final statement, Reeves said, No, I do not. He was pronounced dead at 6.12. Florida uses a three-drug protocol, unlike the single drug Tennessee used in its failed attempt to execute Krista Pike. It was Florida's 18th execution this year and the eighth of a prisoner over the age of 70. Florida has now carried out more than half of all executions in the country this year. Last year, it set a state record with 19.

13:52 If the next scheduled execution goes forward on November 5th, it will tie that record. DeSantis, who leaves office in January, says his goal is to deliver justice to families who've waited decades. You know where I stand on this show. I don't argue about the death penalty itself. But I do think the question Reeves' lawyers raised is a fair one. Whether a jury deciding life or death hurt everything it should have. It's the same question Krista Pike's lawyers raised about her childhood. In both cases, the court said no relief. And in both cases, there's a victim whose family waited a very long time. Deputy Richard Ratzkowski was 29 years old answering a call. Someone has to say his name.

14:35 When we come back, what's next in the brand trial? That's the show for this Wednesday. Here's my question for the Spotify crowd. Should a combat veteran's PTSD ever take the death penalty off the table? If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment and tell me why. If you're following the brand trial with us, send this episode to someone who's following it too. That's how we grow. And on Apple Podcasts, tap listen uninterrupted at the top of your screen. $ 5 a month, no ads.

15:16 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 fifth woman faces cross-examination in the brand trial, and we'll have it for you tomorrow. The Birchmore trial continues in Boston, and we're still watching Tennessee and Krista Pike. 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.

16:05 Matthew Farwell has pleaded not guilty. On Russell Brand. All accounts of testimony are as reported by Sky News, BBC, Variety, and other outlets present at Southwark Crown Court, and are allegations made in court that have not been proven. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. We have not named them and have reported only details already published from open court. Clarification. Tuesday's episode said the Massachusetts medical examiner ruled Sandra Birchmore's death a suicide. That was the original ruling. In April 2026, the office changed the manner of death to undetermined. Tuesday's episode also reported the prosecution's claim that Matthew Farwell's DNA was found on the ligature without noting the defense's position that DNA from several people was found on it.

17:00 On Sandra Birchmore. Testimony and text messages are as reported by the Boston Globe, CBS Boston, CNN, and Boston 25 News. On William Reeves, details are as reported by the Associated Press. 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.