Lawyer Says 2015 Injunction Silenced Russell Brand's Accuser For A Decade

What happened in 2014 and 2015

In June 2014, a massage therapist identified in UK coverage as Sylvie Berki (the spelling appears as Szilvia Berki in some reporting) told Thames Valley Police that Russell Brand had assaulted her. Police investigated and took no further action against him.

Berki then took her allegations to the press and to Twitter. Brand and his then-girlfriend, Jemima Goldsmith, sued her — not for libel, which is nearly impossible to injunct, but for harassment, according to Tax Policy Associates, the policy site run by tax lawyer Dan Neidle, which says it has now obtained and published the order for the first time.

Over the following 16 months the dispute moved through London's High Court without ever reaching a trial. Mr Justice Lewis granted a temporary injunction against Berki soon after the claim was filed, and Mrs Justice Carr later reheard the application and kept it in place, writing that the claimants would "probably" show Berki's allegations were false, but adding that the truth of them was "not the ultimate issue."

In October 2015, a month before a four-to-five-day trial was due to start, Mr Justice Jay gave summary judgment against Berki — deciding the case without a trial, without cross-examination and without a finding of fact on what actually happened. Berki represented herself. The same day, Jay's order made the injunction permanent.

Who is involved

Russell Brand, 51, is the comedian and former MTV host convicted this month of rape and sexual assault in an unrelated case brought by different women. Sylvie Berki is the woman who accused him in 2014 and has been bound by the 2015 injunction ever since. Jemima Goldsmith was Brand's girlfriend at the time and joined him as a co-claimant in the harassment case against Berki; Tax Policy Associates notes it updated its report after a response from Goldsmith.

Mr Justice Jay issued the 2015 summary judgment and the permanent injunction. Mrs Justice Carr and Mr Justice Lewis handled earlier stages of the same case. Lady Justice Arden twice refused Berki permission to appeal, and Lady Justice Falk reviewed the record this year as part of a further challenge.

In the criminal case, Judge Joel Bennathan presided over Brand's trial at Southwark Crown Court, where defense barrister Ian Winter KC represented Brand. Detective Andy Furphy led the Metropolitan Police investigation into the separate allegations that led to Brand's conviction.

"[Brand] used his influence, status and fame to prey on women — as his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement." — Andy Furphy, London police detective, to NPR

What the injunction actually says

Tax Policy Associates says the order goes well beyond barring Berki from contacting Brand or Goldsmith. It prohibits her from disclosing "any information" about the 2014 incident to anyone — not journalists, not friends, not family. "The High Court issued an extraordinary injunction that silenced her for the rest of her life," the site writes.

The order does not exempt the police. If an officer called Berki today about Brand, Tax Policy Associates says, she would breach the injunction simply by answering. Two named doctors who were once carved out as exceptions no longer treat her, so in practice she cannot raise the incident with any doctor or therapist either, short of an emergency.

The court also ordered Berki to pay £50,000 in legal costs within two weeks — a sum Jay himself acknowledged she was "probably impecunious" and unable to pay — and authorized bankruptcy proceedings against her when she didn't.

Berki has tried and failed to overturn the order. Lady Justice Arden refused permission to appeal twice, including once after a hearing in 2017 whose written reasons were never published. This September, Lady Justice Falk reviewed the available transcript and said "some of Jay J's comments could have been put in more muted terms," but concluded Berki "was properly heard, and had a full opportunity to put the points she wished to make." The injunction remains in place.

What the 2026 criminal trial found

Berki's allegation never became a criminal charge; the trial that just ended involved four different women and allegations unconnected to her case. After a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, a jury found Brand guilty on November 5 of raping one woman who had attended one of his comedy shows in 2009, and of sexually assaulting three other women in incidents between 2004 and 2009 at a bar, a radio station and a TV studio. Jurors acquitted him of two further rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault.

Judge Bennathan told Brand he faced a "significant custodial term," according to NPR, and denied a defense request for weekend bail so Brand could see his children. Brand was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison.

Brand's conviction establishes what happened to those four women — it says nothing, legally, about what happened between Brand and Berki in 2014. Tax Policy Associates is explicit on this point: "We don't know whether Ms Berki's allegations were true, and Mr Brand's convictions don't establish that they were."

What each side — and officials — have said

At trial, Winter argued the media had shaped the case against his client, telling jurors that a 2023 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and Sunday Times reporting had "poisoned the well of justice," according to Morning Honey. He also told the court, "Living a highly promiscuous life is entirely lawful however morally distasteful you may find it… Even being manipulative in the pursuit of consensual sex is completely lawful."

Detective Andy Furphy, who led the investigation, said after the verdict: "[Brand] used his influence, status and fame to prey on women — as his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement," NPR reported.

Sunday Times journalist Camilla Long, who helped first investigate the allegations, wrote that sitting through the trial "was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life," and asked, as NPR quoted her, "Never has a predator so loudly declared himself, yet been so roundly ignored."

On the broader pattern of injunctions silencing accusers, former Home Office minister Jess Phillips told the BBC, as reported by the Guardian, that the related Walliams case was unusual only because the injunction there was overturned: "There are many, many people in this country silenced by injunctions, silenced by non-disclosure agreements. That is not new news."

What happens next

No further hearing is scheduled on Berki's injunction, and as of September it remains in force despite Lady Justice Falk's acknowledged concerns about its breadth. The pressure is moving to Parliament and Whitehall instead: culture secretary Lisa Nandy is expected to meet TV, film and publishing leaders about mandatory anti-harassment standards, and lawmakers are debating whether to extend anti-Slapp protections — currently limited to economic and financial crime cases — to victims of sexual and gender-based violence like Berki.