During the earliest stages of their relationship, Alice says Brand was “very charming and very attentive”, sending her “verbose” messages. She remembers feeling “giddy” and “special”.
Before the first time they had sex, Alice says she told him she was a virgin and claims he was instantly aroused. “He was like, ‘Oh my God, my baby, my baby’, and picked me up and cradled me in his arms like a child and was stroking my hair. He’s like, ‘You’re like my little dolly.’” She says he became “preoccupied” with her being innocent and pure.
She claims that there was a large mirror on the wall and she remembers during sex he raised his arm above his head “like this power stance, like he was conquering something”.
Over the following weeks, Brand referred to her as “the child”, asked her to read Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and coached her on what to say to her parents when he wanted to see her, Alice says. Although Alice was over the age of consent in the UK, she and a family member who has also spoken to The Sunday Times to corroborate her story both describe Brand’s behaviour as “grooming”. Alice says he suggested how she could deceive her parents into allowing her to visit him, and claims that he gave her “scripts” on how to lie to them. She also alleges that he told her not to trust her friends and that they would “all be looking to make money from it” if she revealed she was seeing him. “It was isolating,” she said.
“Russell engaged in the behaviours of a groomer, looking back, but I didn’t even know what that was then, or what that looked like,” she says. Alice recalls that Brand told her never to send him sexual images, and she believed this was because of her age.