AMANDA PLATELL: Listening to Russell Brand’s victims in court was distressing enough. But there’s something else about the behaviour of him and his wife that has sickened me to my soul…

As if listening to the courageous testimonies of Russell Brand’s victims in court wasn’t distressing enough, there was something else about this trial that sickened me to my soul.

As a lifelong, practising Christian, I found it utterly repugnant to watch the self-styled Messiah use God as his defence, parading his supposed new faith as if proof of his goodness and innocence.

Even as he stood in the dock awaiting sentencing, Brand made the sign of the cross across his chest.

Now that the trial is over, we have a right to ask the question: was his conversion to Christianity in 2024 – when he was performatively baptised by Bear Grylls in the River Thames just a year after Channel 4’s devastating documentary expose into his treatment of women – pure coincidence or simply a calculated attempt to cleanse his reputation?

Day after day, Brand appeared in court wearing a ludicrously ostentatious crucifix, often carrying a large Bible. He knelt and prayed in the dock, clutched rosary beads and made a great show of his devotion.

But some of us will remember that when Brand was interviewed by Piers Morgan in April, he brought with him the same Bible that he took to the dock in Southwark Crown Court. During the interview, Piers asked Brand to share a passage from the Bible that had been particularly meaningful to him.

Brand spent 90 seconds rifling through the pages, admitting he could not find the exact verse he intended to share.

And yet Brand was even reported to have said before his sentence that ‘he felt God with him in the courtroom’.

Well, look how that turned out, mate. For all his prayers, Brand received a ten-year and six-month sentence, despite his lawyers’ insistence that he was now a ‘different man’ from the one who committed the offences.

But a truly repentant man, one who had genuinely found God and knew himself to be guilty, would surely have admitted his crimes and begged for forgiveness.

That way, he wouldn’t have had to arrive at court in his blacked-out people carrier every day, accompanied by his wife Laura and an entourage, where he told reporters he felt ‘blessed’ before posing for cameras.

He would not have forced his victims to endure the terrible ordeal of a trial – which will live with them for as long as the repercussions of his horrible assaults do.

As a true Christian, the thing that disgusted me most was his deluded, fanatical supporters – or should I say wannabe disciples? – who, on the day of his conviction, paraded a banner depicting Brand alongside Jesus Christ as though this convicted sexual predator were some sort of persecuted saviour.

They’ll surely be the type of vulture who has subjected his innocent victims to vile attacks on social media, believing that Brand is the victim of an Establishment smear campaign.

Indeed, Brand seemed so confident that he would be let off that he and Laura continued broadcasting their religious podcast, Sunday Service With The Brands, throughout the trial.

In one, the beatific couple sat in their matching pyjamas in the window seat of their riverside home near Henley-on-Thames, with their cat Jericho – even the poor moggy has a biblical name – and soft violin music playing in the background.

Brand, 51, wearing a leopard-print dressing gown, quickly addressed the elephant in the room.

‘We are of course in the middle of a very, very unusual time in our marriage,’ he began, before launching a rambling attack on what he called the ‘old media’, the ‘corrupt media’, and ‘hypocritical media’.

He continued: ‘If you follow empire media [sic] you will be aware that, of course, we as a family and me in particular are in a situation that requires the authenticity and authority of true justice.’

The couple revealed that they read passages from the Scriptures and Psalms to each other on their way to court each day. Fat lot of good all that spiritual virtue signalling did him when yesterday the judge described him as an unrepentant ‘sexual predator who has no remorse’.

That must have stung, for throughout the trial Russell insisted that he was a changed man, a devoted husband and father to three young children.

His lawyers even argued that he should be allowed the dignity of returning home to say goodbye to his wife and children before beginning his prison sentence.

But the judge, concerned that he might attempt to flee to his Florida mansion, wisely refused.

That was before we learned that, long before the trial began, Brand had secretly moved nearly £9million out of his TV and stand-up comedy company and attempted to transfer ownership of his £5million Oxfordshire mansion to his wife, raising concerns that he was trying to shield his fortune from potential civil lawsuits by his victims.

To make matters worse for Brand, yesterday his former partner Jemima Goldsmith claimed that he physically assaulted her during their relationship, and accused him of ‘violence, coercive control and abuse’.

And the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that he is under investigation for two further rape allegations, with the possibility of more complainants coming forward.

What Brand’s case has proved is that faith is not a robe you put on at your convenience. It is not a coat of many colours to hide your darkest secrets.

True Christianity demands humility and accountability – qualities Brand severely lacks.