'I dated Russell Brand - these are creepy things he did I now see as red flags'

Russell Brand could face criminal charges over non-recent sexual offences allegations as specialist police officers working on the historical allegations against him passed a file of evidence to the CPS

A woman who claimed she briefly dated Russell Brand has shared what she says are the three creepy things he did on dates which she now believes should have concerned her at the time.

Speaking out as it emerged the 49-year-old media personality could face criminal charges over non-recent sexual offences, Bryony Gordon said met Brand 20 years ago and had a couple of encounters until he "turned his laser-like attention on someone else."

The woman, who is a reporter, recalled several things which she now sees as huge red flags when dating any man, including Brand's stubborn insistence to kiss her and his demand she gargled with mouthwash before they actually locked lips. The latter claim was also made by another woman with whom Brand had been intimate.

Detailing the three things she can remember from the couple of dates with the comedian and actor, the woman wrote a piece for Daily Mail today. She listed the quirks, and her reasons for doing so.

Russell Brand's alleged behaviour on his dates with Bryony Gordon

• Brand "kept asking for a kiss" - having just met Bryony for an interview. Author and journalist Bryony recalls in her piece how Brand asked if he could kiss her before she'd "even had a chance to sip on my coffee". She goes on to reveal how she shrieked no but the comic persisted in trying to woo her. "When I got back to the office, my editor said I looked as if I’d seen a ghost. I could only reply that she’d sent me to interview a madman," Bryony writes. "Half an hour later, my phone rang. Perhaps alarm bells should have rung at the sentence ‘every time I said no [to him asking to kiss me], it only caused him to ask me more'."

• Bryony then claims Brand bombarded her "20 calls and texts a day" until she agreed to go on a date with him. She writes that "perhaps alarm bells should have rung at the sentence 'every time I said no [to him asking to kiss me], it only caused him to ask me more" but put it down to an amusing anecdote at the time. She goes on to recall how she eventually met the comic for Sunday lunch and watched a film called Proof with the dad-of-three.

• Bryony is now sober but wasn't during the time period she briefly dated Brand. The Mail journalist claims Brand, who had been sober for many years at the time, had a "strange insistence" she drink alcohol throughout one of their dates. Bryony then alleges that the former Big Brother's Big Mouth presenter requested she gargle mouthwash before they locked lips "having begged me to kiss him."

Bryony, born in Hammersmith, west London, mentioned Russell Brand in her June 2014 memoirs. In it, she said: "There were hundreds of girls with a Russell Brand story." And she felt compelled to write her piece for the newspaper today because, she says, Brand "has conveniently turned to Christianity just as the police hand their files".

The Mad Girl author writes in her first-person piece that "Brand’s born-again religious fervour" motivated her to make her encounters with him public. She continues to state that she believes people can change but she has no time for those who "believe they are God".

She goes on to explain how, in her opinion, forgiveness and change requires a person to be accountable for their actions and contrition and "Brand has shown neither". She tells readers: "There isn’t a hint of apology for how he behaved towards women when he was, in his own words, ‘promiscuous’."

Bryony then shares her belief Brand is painting himself to be a victim of 'mainstream media' smears and rebranded as a conspiracy theorist, and born-again Christian in order to appeal to the Bible Belt in America and Donald Trump fans. "None of which would matter much if you got the sense he was truly open to redemption," she writes. "Instead, Brand has said being baptised has allowed him to ‘leave the past behind’. To do that, he first needs to face the British criminal justice system – and whatever is in the files the Met police have just handed to the CPS."

Speaking previously to address the claims, Brand said: "I deny any allegations, that have been advanced. I reject the allegations in the strongest possible terms." he later went on to tell Carlson Tucker that the crimes he had been accused of committing were "appalling" and a "deliberate profound attempt to shut down any dissent in an astonishingly aggressive way."

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