A woman who accused Russell Brand of oral rape has waived her anonymity to campaign for a change in the laws around consent.
Mia Latter, who was previously identified only as “Alice” in the Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4‘s Dispatches’ joint expose on the comedian back in 2023, has told how she was subjected to sexual and emotional abuse during a three-month relationship in 2006, when she was just 16 years old and the Get Him to the Greek star was 30.
Mia has called for a “staggered” age of consent that would prohibit relationships between those aged 16-18 and older adults.
She told The Sunday Times, “I don’t want to criminalise teenagers having sex with each other.”
She continued, “If you’re between the ages of 16 and 18, it seems reasonable that you can have relationships with each other, and [teenagers] are always going to. But … if you’re in your thirties, forties and fifties and you’re trying to have a relationship with someone under the age of 18, it [should be] a criminal offence…”
“Now I’m an adult, it’s just insane to even look at a 16-year-old with anything other than kindness and compassion,” Mia expressed.
Noting the current age of consent was set in 1885, she added, “It’s that couple of days difference you can tip into being legal, but … you’re still a child in lots of other respects. I think we can review some laws from that period.”
Mia met Russell, who was jailed for ten-and-a-half years earlier this week, while out shopping and, after exchanging text messages, she confessed her age but insisted he didn’t care.
She said, “I thought that the second I said, ‘I’m 16’ he was going to block me. He’d be horrified, and that’d be the end of it.”
Instead, he asked if she still wanted to meet the following day for dinner. “There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation,” Mia recalled.
As their relationship developed, Russell had told her to keep their romance secret from their friends, but she insisted those around him knew, with him referring to Mia as “The Child” in front of his entourage.
Russell Brand also warned Mia not to send intimate photographs to him because they would have been regarded as child abuse images.
She said, “Even at the time, it felt ridiculous to me that I can’t send him photographs of myself naked … but I can have sex with this much older man. It doesn’t quite add up, does it?”
Mia believes her age was more of an attraction to Russell, now 51, than who she really was, and he barely took the time to get to know her.
She stated, “He wasn’t interested in me for me. I felt like this is his fetish. He likes me because I’m 16 and a virgin … and I was just ticking this box for him. I could’ve been any other 16-year-old.”
The 37-year-old is now focusing on her consent campaign, rather than pushing for the Arthur actor to be brought to justice for his alleged treatment of her.
She said, “I just don’t know what capacity I have to give years more of my life to this, for my head to be occupied with these awful crimes. And it takes a toll on your personal life, on your marriage. I feel as though I haven’t been the world’s greatest mum at times, because I’ve been so upset, and I haven’t been the greatest daughter [or] sister.”
Additionally, Mia Latter is in awe of the women who gave evidence during Russell Brand’s trial. “They put him away. Some women didn’t get the guilty verdict, but it was definitely a team effort, and I will forever be grateful to them. I’d waited since I was 16 thinking, ‘It’s gonna happen soon — somebody’s gonna out him’ … I feel like justice has been served.”