Why Winston Marshall questions consistency in UK prosecutions

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 57:39

   Well, I'm going to take a position that's, I guess, in this context, controversial and likely going to be unpopular, and I invite you guys to push back against me if you think I'm misguided. But looking at this case, I am actually a bit, um i i have a sense that the there's a problem with the british judicial system and the british justice system and i i'll make my case i have never met russell brand i i'm not saying he is he by the way still refutes the allegations that he says it was always consensual all the evidence in the case was testimony there was not video evidence there was not forensic evidence i dna and so it seems to me it comes down to largely a he said she said with a again you can correct me if i'm wrong here but the jury were asked have they read the times expose in late uh this late

2. 58:39

   summer 23 or watch the channel 4 expose and they hadn't but they would still have known about brand and i don't know how you could have missed this story and so you've got a situation that this guy with allegations from 20 odd years ago which are testimony and even the testimony it's like I think one of the victims said she had initially said didn't think there was much of a story when she was approached by either Times or Channel 4. Now, I'm not saying that Brand is innocent.

3. 59:16

   I don't know. The courts obviously found him guilty. As you'll know that his lawyer on the way out said to the Times journalist, you fucked it. And the reason I think if I'm trying to understand why he said that is because that they the channel 4 or the times they put that out in the public before putting it to the police with once it's in the police you can't put it out you can't do it because you have contempt of court right so you can't then do the thing so they did it before and then it went to to the police so that's just in the wrong order and what frustrates me, and this is why I'm actually frustrated, is because we have had in our country since the Second World War, the most horrific series of group charge sexual exploitation known euphemistically as the grooming gang scandal. And there are plenty of examples where young girls who went with

4. 1:00:20

   forensic evidence there was one girl in in 2013 i think it was no earlier 2008 she went to the police gave her underwear in which had the dna of the victim they arrested two men and then the cps decided not to press charges who was head of the cps at that time it uh who was the chief public prosecutor. It was Keir Starmer. So we're in a country where, as shown with Russell Brand, if the establishment want to put people away for these sort of crimes, they have shown that they can. But when the narrative is wrong, when the victim is inconvenient for the establishment narrative, they haven't done. And so for me, it's another sense. Again, I'm not saying that Brand is innocent i'm saying that here we have the establishment showing that if they want to act they will but the frustration is those on the other side when it happens the other side not

5. 1:01:22

   only are these victims is there no justice for these victims but we elect to be prime minister the person who throws it out so for me there's a sense that like it's a sense of something's not quite right. And I just add that Hugh Edwards at the BBC, who had indecent images of children on his phone, he got a suspended sentence. Brand, there's a way this goes, this happens, where he's going to spend the rest of his adult life behind bars. That's actually a scenario. Now, it might be the case that this is justice working and maybe he was you know the the man they found to be guilty for for good reason and and this is justice being served i'm i'm saying i don't i don't know but this is not as clear-cut a case