CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses sexual misconduct.
Things aren’t looking good for the BBC after The Telegraph revealed that complaints made against Russell Brand in 2008 before he was fired from Radio 2 were apparently never reported to more senior executives. Fkn yikes.
Complaints about Brand’s conduct during his time as presenter on 6Music and Radio 2 (between the years 2006 and 2008) are the subject of renewed scrutiny following the sexual assault allegations against the disgraced comedian from that time period.
Brand was fired from his job on Radio 2 after he and fellow presenter Jonathan Ross left lewd messages on actor Andrew Sach‘s answering machine which were apparently about Brand having a sexual relationship with Sach’s granddaughter.
Now, BBC’s Director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews Peter Johnson has launched an internal review into Brand’s behaviour while he was with the company.
However, insiders told The Telegraph that there’s no paper trail to show the complaints made against Brand — which the sources say weren’t of a sexual nature, BTW — went beyond the network’s senior management.
According to The Telegraph‘s sources, the review is yet to find any proof that executives of Radio 2 were ever informed of any wrongdoing by Brand at all.
At the time, the controller of Radio 2 was a woman named Lesley Douglas, who resigned in October 2008 following the Sachs scandal.
One complaint made to Douglas in 2007 reportedly included an account of Brand’s behavior which was described as an “alarming display of aggression and disrespect”. This included claims Brand allegedly flew into a fit of rage where he threw objects around a studio. Another complaint claimed Brand urinated in front of staff and a guest who was allegedly a minor.
BBC also reported that in 2008, Brand allegedly exposed himself to a female member of staff and then laughed about it. He allegedly followed her into a bathroom and exposed his penis to her, which he then joked about on air.
Douglas’ lawyers released a statement earlier this month which said she “did not at any time encourage, enable and/or fail herself to take any adequate steps within her power with regard to the conduct of Russell Brand of which she was aware”.
The BBC has reached out to Douglas in the midst of all the renewed Russell Brand allegations and informed her she no longer has to stick to its confidentiality agreements.
Basically, it wants her to give evidence in the BBC’s review, so it can piece together what she knew.
The Russell Brand reckoning is truly upon us, folks.
Image: Carl Court/Getty Images
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