On Tuesday, in a London courtroom where the afternoon light falls flat and grey on wood panelling, a single charge quietly disappeared. Mr Justice Bennathan told the jury that the evidence was insufficient to support a count of indecent assault against the comedian and broadcaster Russell Brand, and the jurors were formally asked to return a not guilty verdict on it. The charge concerned a woman who said that in 2001, while she worked at MTV, Brand grabbed her arm and tried to drag her into a toilet. The case did not end there, however.

The jury was handed an amended indictment in which the same allegation is recast as attempted indecent assault, a charge Brand has also denied. He pleads not guilty to all of it: three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and the one count of attempted indecent assault. The prosecution is expected to conclude on Wednesday morning, after which the defence is due to begin. It is the defence's framing, as reported from the court, that gives the story its wider cultural weight.

Brand has said the accusations originated in a documentary he calls defamatory and fictitious, built on anonymised interviews he describes as false. He has further argued that when the media and the police publicly invited more people to come forward, some encounters were invented or reimagined. These are contentions for the jury to weigh, not findings, and the prosecution's account stands in direct opposition to them. What makes the proceedings so absorbing, from London to the newsrooms of Los Angeles and Lagos, is the collision of two kinds of judgment: the fast, public verdict of a documentary and its audience, and the slow, procedural one of twelve people bound by a burden of proof.