Ian Winter KC said he had reported himself to the Bar Standards Board so the matter could be subjected to proper scrutiny. Photograph: Dickson Lee/South China Morning Post/Getty View image in fullscreen Ian Winter KC said he had reported himself to the Bar Standards Board so the matter could be subjected to proper scrutiny. Photograph: Dickson Lee/South China Morning Post/Getty Russell Brand Russell Brand barrister reports himself to watchdog over clash with journalist Ian Winter KC told Rosamund Urwin of the Sunday Times, whose investigation led to Brand’s victims coming forward: ‘I hope you are pleased with yourself’
Prefer the Guardian on Google Russell Brand’s barrister has reported himself to his professional regulator after being accused of launching a tirade at a journalist shortly after his client had been found guilty of rape.
Ian Winter KC “confronted” the Sunday Times journalist Rosamund Urwin, whose investigation led to Brand’s victims coming forward, telling her: “I hope you are pleased with yourself.”
Urwin responded: “I’m pleased justice has been done,” to which Winter replied: “Well, it wasn’t. You fucked it.”
“Congratulations,” he added, in an incident that happened outside the courtroom door at Southwark crown court on Thursday afternoon, with a group of journalists watching.
Read more In a statement issued on Friday lunchtime, Winter said he had referred himself to the Bar Standards Board, his professional regulator.
He said: “Having seen the ways matters have been characterised in today’s press, I consider my professional duty requires me to self-report those allegations to the Bar Standards Board so the matter can be subject to proper scrutiny.
The incident happened moments after a jury had found Brand guilty of rape and three counts of sexual assault at the conclusion of a four-week trial. He was cleared of two further charges of rape and one of attempted indecent assault.
Brand, 51, had denied all the charges against him, and argued through his lawyer that he had been wrongly accused and was the victim of a media conspiracy.
After the trial, experts added to calls for a change in the law to ensure juries are warned against “rape myths”.
In his closing speech, Winter said none of the complainants had “resisted or screamed or even tried to leave” during their encounters with Brand.
Claire Waxman, who is the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, is seeking to update the law to ensure juries are warned against “rape myths”. She criticised “outdated and harmful assumptions” that victims must have screamed or tried to fight off their attacker.
Deniz Ugur, deputy director of the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition, said: “It is really appalling to see defence lawyers intentionally lean into a whole range of tired tropes and myths about rape. “Rape myths like the ones we’ve seen in this case have no place in the courtroom.”
The head of Scotland Yard, Sir Mark Rowley, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he supported Waxman’s call. “I think what I’ve heard reported heads towards, it’s getting very close to victim-blaming, which is something we’ve thought very hard about in policing and make sure we don’t do.
“People fall into myths about [how] a rape victim must behave in a certain way, must react in a certain way. The evidence is really clear. Some people will fight. Some people will freeze. Some people will tell people straight away. Some people bottle it up for years. There isn’t one way of re…