Russell Brand now facing 2nd investigations by UK police after rape, sexual harassment charges

Los Angeles, Oct 2 (IANS) Actor-comedian Russell Brand is now facing a second investigation by the UK police following his previous allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse.

Thames Valley Police said a woman contacted the force two weeks ago with “new information” in relation to reports of “harassment and stalking”, though Brand had accused the woman back in 2017 of ‘harassment’.

The information which was broken by the BBC at the time stated that the woman in question had reported her allegations to Thames Valley Police numerous times between 2018 and 2022 but no further action was taken. Thames Valley said it would be “inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation” further, according to ‘The Hollywood Reporter’.

The news comes following the London’s Metropolitan Police previously confirming that it was launching a probe into “non-recent” incidents, saying that it had received a “number of allegations of sexual offences.”

Brand has previously vehemently denied “very serious criminal allegations,” using a video post to describe the accusations as “extremely egregious and aggressive attacks” that he said he “absolutely refutes”.

At least ten women have come forward to make public claims against the comedian so far. Apart from calling the charges bogus, Brand had released an hour-long video where he spoke about free speech, and called the claims a conspiracy by the “mainstream media”.

He said: “We are going to be talking about the State and the legacy media’s war on free speech. And in particular, how that has affected me this week. We are going to continue to do on this channel what we’ve always done, which is tell you the truth as best we can.”

After he had posted his video on YouTube there were demands to pull out all his content from social media.

While some news outlets such as the BBC have removed some of their coverage on Brand, YouTube has refused to take down any of his content saying that it has no cause to do so, and that nothing Brand has said or written has warranted any kind of ban against him.

–IANS

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