LONDON, ENGLAND (THECOUNT) — Russell Brand has been found guilty of rape and three counts of sexual assault following a trial involving allegations from six women at Southwark Crown Court. The British comedian and actor was acquitted of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.
The verdicts were delivered Thursday, Nov. 5, after the jury deliberated for more than two days. Brand, 51, was remanded into custody until a sentencing hearing Monday, Nov. 9. Judge Mr Justice Joel Bennathan told him the convictions meant he would face a “significant custodial term.”
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Brand denied all seven charges. His defense maintained that the sexual encounters were consensual or that the allegations had been misrepresented. The charges involved six women and alleged incidents between 1999 and 2009.
The jury found Brand guilty of sexually assaulting a woman who worked at MTV during a 2004 birthday party at London’s Nordic Bar. She testified that he grabbed her breasts. Jurors found him not guilty of a separate allegation that he orally raped the same woman in a restroom at the bar.
Brand was also convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at a radio station in 2004 or 2005. She told the court that he grabbed her, pushed her against a wall and kissed her aggressively. Brand denied the incident.
The rape conviction involved a woman Brand met backstage after a stand-up performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. She testified that after they had consensual vaginal sex at his London home, Brand unexpectedly penetrated her anally and removed his condom. Brand said the encounter was consensual.
A fourth guilty verdict involved a former Channel 4 employee who said Brand demanded a massage during a workplace incident in 2009 and put his head between her legs, with his mouth and nose near her genital area. Brand told the court he could not recall the incident.
The jury acquitted Brand of raping a woman he met on the fringes of the Labour Party Conference in 1999. She alleged that he pushed her onto a hotel bed and raped her after she invited him to her room. Brand said the encounter was consensual.
He was also found not guilty of attempting to pull a former MTV employee into a toilet at the network’s London offices in 2001. During the trial, the judge had reduced the original indecent assault charge to attempted indecent assault, citing insufficient evidence to support the original count. Brand said he did not remember the incident but denied attempting a nonconsensual assault.
The six women came forward after allegations about Brand appeared in a 2023 Channel 4 documentary and reports in The Times. The complainants have lifelong legal rights to anonymity. Three of the women involved in the sexual assault convictions worked in television or radio, including former employees of MTV and Channel 4.
Brand’s defense argued that the documentary had “poisoned the well of justice” and influenced the complainants. Prosecutors countered that the program had prompted the women to report experiences they said had troubled them for years, rather than creating or changing their accounts.
The case covered a period in which Brand rose from relative obscurity to widespread fame as a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He later starred in films including Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, and was previously married to singer Katy Perry.
Southwark Crown Court is in the Southwark area of central London, south of the River Thames. The trial and verdict proceedings took place at the court.
Google Maps: Southwark Crown Court, London
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