28 November 2023 , 13:18
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Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon announced its internal investigation into the rape, assault and emotional abuse allegations made against its former presenter Russell Brand is just 'weeks away' from being completed.
Allegations were raised about comedian Brand, 48, during Channel 4's explosive Dispatches documentary in September, which came from a joint investigation with The Times and Sunday Times. The Get Him To The Greek actor was accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse. Brand strongly denies all the allegations made against him.
The incidents allegedly took place between 2006 and 2013, during the height of his fame while he was working for Channel 4 on Big Brother spin-off shows EFourum and Big Brother’s Big Mouth as well as on BBC programmes and starring in Hollywood films.
Hours before Dispatches aired, Brand took to his YouTube channel to release a statement claiming there were "serious allegations" made against him, which he "absolutely refutes" and strongly denies. He described the allegations as a "coordinated attack" against him.
On Tuesday, Channel 4 chief executive Mahon appeared in front of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee and said she was “very happy” to take questions on the report after it is published. When asked how the internal probe was doing, she said: "I am certainly very proud of that programme because we had investigative journalists working on it for three to four years.
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Brand vehemently denies all allegations (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)"Although, of course it may historically implicate Channel 4 programmes. That’s why I’m particularly glad that we did that programme and called it to account." Mahon continued: "We are doing a full investigation in a separate team to the people who made the programme and any allegations about criminal activity goes straight to the police.”
She added that the channel commissioned a team who are currently going through approximately 60,000 documents which they have “historically on record”. They are in the process of interviewing people who may have been involved at the time.
Mahon said: “As it stands, we’re not quite finished. We’re probably in the process of weeks, not months.” Mahon explained that Channel 4 has its own code of conduct for its staff as well as one for suppliers and producers which she said they “repeatedly share and refresh and update”.
Before the documentary aired, Brand released a statement on YouTube. Speaking to his millions of subscribers, he said: "I've received two extremely disturbing letters or a letter and an email. One from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn't be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.
"But amidst this litany of astonishing rather baroque attacks, often very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time when I was in the movies. And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.
"Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that. Then almost too transparent, and I'm being transparent about it now as well. And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?"
*If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999