The imprisoned convicted rapist Russell Brand is at the epicentre of a raft of journalistic, media, legal and political issues.
They will take some time to unravel and lead to reforms.
But there could eventually be reforms in broadcasting organisations to protect women in the workplace.
There will also be a need for reforms in legal practices in how victims are treated in courts of law when they are brave enough to come forward and confront their attackers.
The first task is to salute the journalists from The Sunday Times, The Times, Channel 4 Dispatches and Hardcash Productions, which pushed ahead — in some cases for years — to bring the once powerful Brand to justice.
They had to wade through abuse, legal threats and injunctions.
Most extraordinary of all was the permanent gagging injunction granted to Brand and his then partner Jemima Goldsmith in 2015 that prevented a woman who accused Brand of sexual assault from not just going public with the allegation but even going to the police.
The gagging order was issued by a judge well known to the media, Mr Justice Jay, who had earlier been lead counsel to the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics.
Dogged investigation
But all that is a distraction compared with the main point: how two female journalists, Rosamund Urwin of The Sunday Times and Charlotte Wace of The Times, spent years investigating rumours in show business circles about Brand’s behaviour.
As The Times explained this week, the investigation, which finally got over the line together with Dispatches, involved many hours of interviews with the women involved and hundreds of hours of going through recordings of Brand’s comedy sets and broadcasts.
It is, overall, a testimony to the power of strong editors backing tenacious reporters for as long as it takes and cross-media co-operation.
Ironically, Urwin and Wace featured in the 2024 Media Freedom Awards — but only as runners-up. The big prize went to The Sun for its exposure of former BBC news presenter Huw Edwards.
There were obviously too many dodgy TV presenters around that year.
Intimidatory process
As a consequence of the investigation, there are serious questions to be answered from senior members of the legal profession and not just Mr Justice Jay’s performance with gagging orders.
There are far more serious questions facing Brand’s lead counsel Ian Winter. The barrister tried to get the case against Brand thrown out by making allegations of criminality against the journalists that turned out to be false.
Outside court, after the guilty verdicts were announced, Winter is said to have launched a tirade against Urwin, accusing her of denying his client a fair trial.
Winter decided to “self-report” allegations against him to the Bar Standards Board so they can receive “proper scrutiny”.
And there is a much larger legal issue that goes beyond Winter — and that involves how far barristers can go in confronting women who have taken alleged rapists to court.
There is a fear that the current process, which could be seen as intimidatory, could act as a disincentive to women coming forward.
In sentencing Brand, Mr Justice Bennathan in effect issued a warning to members of his profession who might be tempted, in defence of their clients, to treat the women involved as somehow partly guilty.
Bennathan insisted that “whatever women wear, wherever they go, indeed whatever they drink, they retain the right to say no and to demand justice from the criminal courts”.
After the case, prime minister Andy Burnham suggested that there may have to be changes to how rape cases are handled in court to prevent victims from appearing to be the ones on trial.
A continuing problem
There is one final key question to be addressed and that is the extent to which leading broadcasting organisations that made Brand’s name and wealth may have turned a blind eye.
He was The Talent and, above a certain level of popularity, The Talent can do no wrong.
Was Brand’s wrongdoing, like that of Jimmy Savile, happening in plain sight?
Brand was banned from the BBC offices in Los Angeles after he was accused of exposing himself to young women there, but the implications didn’t seem to have made it across the Atlantic.
There is clearly a continuing problem with high-profile men in media taking advantage of a power imbalance to inflict themselves on younger women who may be freelancers on short-term contracts.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy, speaking in the wake of the Brand case and Channel 4’s cancellation of Married at First Sight, warned that abuse in the media industry was probably still happening.
“Hand on heart, I can’t say to you as the culture secretary that this is not happening today. In fact, if I had to wager, I would say it is,” Nandy said on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
There could be more court appearances in future for Brand, with police saying that at least two more women have come forward since the court case.
Meanwhile, in another media victory against The Talent, The Guardian and ITV News have won the right to report that comedian and author David Walliams has been accused of inappropriate behaviour against women as young as 15. He denies the allegations.
