On my train ride home from work the day our investigation into Russell Brand was published, I overheard two men discussing the allegations. Swigging from beer bottles, they looked like blokeyness personified – and I, unfairly, believed that I knew what they would think. Instead, they talked about how brave women must be to accuse such a powerful man of sexual assault (Brand denies the allegations). It’s a view that many people have expressed to me in the six weeks since the joint investigation between the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches emerged: how much rests on the courage of the first women who come forward.
This is particularly true in the hyper-digital age. The former comedian has been reborn as an alt-right influencer and attracted an online army, which was deployed to dismiss the claims as a mainstream-media conspiracy. This shifted the power even more in favour of the accused over the accusers. There’s a pack mentality online, too, with a Who’s Who of the most loathed people on the internet – Andrew Tate, Katie Hopkins, Jordan Peterson, Laurence Fox – all lining up to defend Brand. If you spend too much time online, especially in the cesspit of Elon Musk’s X, it can feel like this is all part of a powerful backlash to #MeToo. In the wider world, though, I think there has been a positive shift. There are conversations about sexual harassment – in schools, in medicine, in parliament – that simply weren’t happening a decade ago.
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