Being “disrespectful or rude or acting like a crazy idiot” towards women during sex is not a crime if there is consent, Russell Brand’s barrister has said.

Ian Winter KC’s remarks came as he concluded his closing speech at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, where he urged the jury to separate Brand’s sexual behaviour and treatment of women from the question of whether he committed crimes.

Brand, 51, denies three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999.

Mr Winter told jurors: “It is not criminal to treat women unkindly before, during or after sex.

“It is not, I am afraid, criminal to be disrespectful or rude or to act like a crazy idiot.

“If there is consent it is lawful.”

The barrister said that their allegations came “very, very many years” later, adding that they “only did so once the well of justice had been corrupted and contaminated” and until the “ground had been cut from under his feet and the public mind poisoned against him.”

He questioned how none of the women came forward during the MeToo movement.

Mr Winter said: “How is it that it’s only three out of the many, many women, how is it that not even these ones, not even these allegations on this indictment, came to light during MeToo.

“Many women were questioning whether they had a bad experience sexually at the hands of a famous person. It could not have been more publicised,” he said.

“How is it that not one of them thought what happened to them involved a crime during the MeToo movement?”

Brand’s comedy was “radical and different” as he was “telling the truth about what was going on consensually between adults”, Mr Winter said.

The barrister said: “You may think that while his comedy was certainly not to all tastes and very much the product of the time, he was honest then about it, he was honest then about what sort of sex he was engaged in.”

He said Brand’s stand-up comedy was focused on him “telling the truth”, adding: “When you put yourself back to the time, it was radical and different because someone was telling the truth about what’s going on consensually between adults.”

Mr Winter said reporting in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and by The Times and The Sunday Times prompted the complainants to come forward, but had created a “fundamentally compromised” case against the comedian.

Opening his speech, the barrister quoted 19th-century philosopher John Henry Newman and his description of an attempt to “poison the wells”.

He told jurors that journalists had “poisoned the well of justice” in Brand’s case, saying the women had been “drawn forth” by the 2023 allegations rather than independently deciding to report their own.

He said: “They all came forward for reasons connected to the TV programme, not for reasons personable to themselves.”

Mr Winter said the women were “not random, not independent”, adding that they had each been “thoroughly contaminated” by the documentary.

Of the allegations, he said that the women may “think it now”, but this does not “reflect what they were actually thinking back then”.

He added: “That is the precise consequence of the poisoning of the well.”

Mr Winter also argued that the passage of time had created another problem for the case, describing the delay between the alleged offences and reports to police as “monstrous”.

He said: “Delay makes it impossible to litigate the issues in the way you would if it wasn’t in the way.”

Mr Winter added that delay “does something particularly savage in a case where it’s one person’s word against another person’s word.”

He told jurors they were dealing with a “quagmire of doubt and inaccurate recollection”.

Brand “genuinely believed” the women were consenting which is why he was described as acting normally, the barrister said.

Mr Winter said there was a “curious feature” to the evidence from the complainants, adding: “They have all given evidence that Mr Brand’s behaviour was normal either during and/or after the incidents.”

He added: “That, we suggest, is something that simply cannot have occurred if he is guilty.”

The barrister said the fact he behaved normally showed Brand believed they had consented.

He added: “He couldn’t have been behaving normally if he knew they were not.

“He obviously genuinely believed that they were consenting because that’s the only thing that would explain why his behaviour was normal.”

Mr Winter added that there is “no evidence he is some sort of psychopath who rapes people and thinks it’s normal”.

He also told jurors: “What matters is he (Brand) had an immense amount of sex and none of it was unlawful.”

He added: “Disgusting, distasteful, immoral, who cares?

“It’s irrelevant to your consideration.”

Mr Winter put to jurors: “Why is it that only three rapes in 10 years?”

The barrister also pointed to the evidence of Mr Brand’s wife, adding: “She fell in love with that man in full knowledge of what he was doing.

“She married him, she bore him three children.”

He added that she would not have done so if Brand was “guilty as charged”.

The barrister said the prosecution had reached for Brand’s 2007 memoir My Booky Wook in a “bid of desperation”.

Mr Winter said it was a “funny book” containing jokes, highlighting a passage alongside a childhood photograph in which Brand wrote: “This is the exact moment when I decided to act gay to attract girls.”

The barrister added: “It was so obviously a joke…

“The joke is that it didn’t work.”

Mr Winter said the 2023 allegations against Brand had had a “truly devastating effect” on him, reminding jurors of the defendant’s recounting of being blocked from visiting his baby son when he was having open heart surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Mr Winter said: “That tells you the extent to which public opinion has been perverted and corrupted.”

Brand sat upright and looked straight ahead in the dock during his barrister’s closing speech.

The trial continues.