Did our 'culture of judging women' protect Russell Brand? | Laila Cunningham

A woman is never at fault for being raped. Whatever she wore, wherever she went, wherever she drank, the responsibility belongs entirely to the man who raped her. Surely there's a way for you to obtain the video without asking me to sit here with strangers and describe to you a situation where I'm in a porn video. It was humiliating. How many women leave that process feeling humiliated? How many think, I wish I'd never reported it? Now, Russell Brand has been sentenced to 10 and a half years for rape and sexual assault. But why did he get away with it for so long? The judge did say his status protected him. How did his fame and power shield him from accountability? And did a culture of judging women help protect him too? Now, let me be absolutely clear. A woman is never at fault for being raped. Whatever she wore, wherever she went, wherever she drank, the responsibility belongs entirely to the man who raped her. Why do I find comments like these? I find them so disturbing. Why do they still happen? Well, she went up to his flat. She knew what he was like. What did she expect? These are excuses for him. Going to somebody's flat is not permission for them to rape you. Knowing somebody has a reputation does not make you responsible for what they do. So why are people still saying these things? Why are women's actions still viewed as leading a man on when they aren't? Frankly, why is being friendly, wearing something attractive or going home with somebody treated as if it tells them everything he needs to know? Because I can assure you from a woman, it doesn't. A woman can go to a man's flat and not want to have sex. She can want sex and then change her mind. She can agree to one thing and refuse another. None of that gives anyone permission to rape her. With Brand, how much was dismissed as outrageous behaviour, as a joke, or that's just what he's like? At what point does protecting somebody's career become more important than asking whether women are safe? Being sexually promiscuous is one thing, and being a sexual predator are completely different things. Women don't have to make all the right decisions. Nothing a woman did. can make them partly responsible for being raped. There's no contributory blame here to allocate to their actions, absolutely none. And that's the paradigm I think that needs to change. The idea that we can condemn rape but still attach some responsibility to the women. We cannot. The responsibility lies entirely with the man who raped her. And I just interviewed a woman who was raped and the Met refused to take it further. She said they told her there wasn't enough evidence. And she didn't feel she was believed in the interview. She told me the man said, told the police that she consented. And as far as she was concerned, it basically came down to that. The police said, well, he said you consented. And she said she didn't. And she felt feeling that it was up to her to prove that she hadn't consented. She also told me that the police asked her to reenact exactly what had happened. She found it beyond humiliating and couldn't understand why it was necessary. Imagine that, you've reported being raped, and now you're asked to reenact it. And I had something similar. I mean, it's different, not as serious. But it made me understand how distressing reporting the process itself can be. Somebody made an AI deepfake porn video of me. It was fake. I did not consent to my image being used in that way. And when the police came to take my account, they asked me to describe what was in the video. And I said, really, do I have to? And they told me that they had a policy, actually, of not having an ex-account. And I'm thinking, surely you can just download it and have a dummy account. Surely there's a way for you to obtain the video without asking me to sit here with strangers and describe to you a situation where I'm in a porn video. It was humiliating. You know, obviously police need evidence, but I think the way they gather it matters. If something is that distressing, do I really have to go through it? And so how many women leave that process feeling humiliated? How many think, I wish I'd never reported it? And then, you know, you've got to ask, why few cases reach trial? I mean, in London, only 6% of rapes end up in a charge, and a rape is reported every hour. And you've got to wonder, with the lady I interviewed, was his account properly tested? Was he asked, what made him believe that she had agreed? What made him believe that he had consent? How do you establish what happened behind a closed door? There's no CCTV, there's no independent witness. There can be messages, forensic evidence and other evidence, but sometimes the accounts are just two people and it comes down on credibility. So how do police test those accounts? How do they investigate properly rather than treating she agreed as the end of the inquiry? Because... I hate to tell you, her account is evidence too. Taking a woman seriously means investigating what she says thoroughly. It means pursuing the evidence and testing the suspect's account too. So why do so few reported rapes end up in trial? Where are those cases falling away? And how many women come away feeling that they're not believed? Why aren't politicians asking these questions? We talk about legislation, but rape is already illegal. In fact, we heard the Labour Party saying they're going to just bring in some new legislation. But we also have to talk about how it's investigated, how powerful men escape accountability and the attitudes women encounter when they speak up. We say we've moved on and, you know, it's modern and these things don't happen, but have we really? Look at some of the comments online about Russell Brand. Well, you know, she consented to sex, but does consenting to sex mean that she consented to anal sex? Saying yes to one thing doesn't mean saying yes to everything. It's not a man's prerogative to decide that it does. And I struggle with this as a mother because I have teenage daughters. Well, one's an adult now. And I tell them, be careful where you go. Be careful who you trust. Sometimes I even catch myself telling them what to wear because I know that it's attractive. And I say it because I'm frightened for them. I want to protect them. But frankly, deep down, I'm thinking they should be able to wear what the hell they want. And if they ignore every piece of advice I give them, I will say they are still not responsible for anyone that assaults them. And my advice is about trying to keep them safe, but it must never become an excuse for the person who hurts them. So how do you feel? Have you ever felt a man interpreted the way you dressed or the way you behaved at work or in a situation or ordinary friendliness as meaning you were up for it when in fact you weren't? Have you ever had to change what you wear, how you speak, because you're worried a man will read something into that when there really isn't? Have you ever agreed to one thing and had a man assume you're agreeing to everything? When you said no, did he listen? Or did he try and make you feel that somehow you led him on to it? That because you'd gone too far, you couldn't change your mind. You could and you always should be able to. And if you told somebody what happened, what was their response? Did they ask you if you were okay? Or, as happens a lot, did they ask you why the hell did you go home with him? As if that was the reason. And if you went to the police, did they investigate it? Did you feel you were being asked to defend what you did? And what advice do you give to your daughters? How do we talk to them about safety without leaving them in any doubt that a sexual assault would never be their fault? That's the culture I'm challenging. The excuses made for men. The scrutiny directed at women. The idea that her choices somehow reduce his responsibility. They don't. So why did Brian get away with it for so long? What protected him? And what has to change to stop another powerful man from doing the same? We say we've moved on. But if she, in quotation marks, went up to his flat, is still being offered as an excuse for rape, how far have we actually moved on? I just remembered, actually, one other thing that the lady I interviewed told me, and it was that when they decided not to go ahead with charging her rapist, they said it's because they couldn't be sure that the jury would convict. And what you realise is that the police are acting like judge and jury. And then she asked for her file, her victim file, And they said they weren't allowed to give it to her. She wasn't allowed that vital information. And perhaps we really have to re-evaluate the rights of victims, the rights that they have to all the information available about their case. Because if she goes and tells a friend what happened to her, and that friend ends up being raped, the friend will be like, well, hang on, what's the point? I'm not going to report it because I know what happened to her. I know they're not going to believe me. I know it's going to be humiliating. I've got a message here from Christopher, and he says, if she did lead him on, the measure of a man is how he behaves in those circumstances. Well, I mean, just the word leading him on is troublesome, Christopher, but I hear what you're saying. I've got another text message from Victoria. Hey, Leila, I'm Australian. I've lived in the UK since 2005. The British, I find, have a warped sense of human in terms of extreme lewdness, I feel. Russell Brand was always vile to me. When people say he was charismatic and funny, I never got what on earth they were thinking. He always was putrid, in my opinion. So none of this is a surprise at all. Did you watch Russell Brand and think, have your doubts? I know that lots of people did. You know, lots of people, oh, we always knew. So why was he allowed to get away with it? And how can we stop it from happening again? I mean, I remember the whole Me Too movement and that kind of died down. I don't know, I just feel like perhaps women are not protected enough.