LONDON (Diya TV) — A jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted comedian and actor Russell Brand on Thursday of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others. The verdicts followed a four-week trial over allegations involving six women and incidents dating from 1999 to 2009.
Jurors found Brand, 51, guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. They acquitted him of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault. The convictions involved four women and offenses from 2004 to 2009.
The rape conviction concerned a woman Brand met after a performance at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. She testified that she later went to his home in Hampstead. They had consensual sex, she said, before Brand forced her into anal sex and ignored her pleas to stop. Months later, she texted him that he had treated her “like an animal.” Brand replied, “I’m sorry,” the jury heard.
The jury convicted Brand of sexual assault against a woman who said he grabbed her breasts at a Soho bar in 2004. It acquitted him of a separate rape charge involving the same woman. In another case, a radio-station employee testified that Brand pushed her against a wall, kissed her and groped her at work in 2004 or 2005. A Channel 4 employee said he put his head in her lap and pressed his face into her groin during a 2009 production project. Jurors convicted him of sexual assault in both cases.
Brand denied all seven charges. He told jurors that his sexual encounters were consensual and said he had never forced anyone to do anything against their will. He acknowledged that he had been promiscuous and had used his fame to gain sexual access to women, but maintained that the charged encounters did not involve nonconsensual sex. His defense also argued that the women’s accounts changed after allegations against him became public in 2023.
Prosecutors argued that Brand used his growing fame and access to women to manipulate situations and commit the offenses. They asked jurors to consider the women’s testimony alongside other evidence, including accounts from witnesses who knew Brand and could describe his behavior. The Crown Prosecution Service said the women had not reported the incidents at the time; a 2023 television program about Brand prompted them to contact police independently.
The age of the allegations left investigators without some forms of evidence. Police said they found no available CCTV or forensic evidence and faced limits on digital records. Detectives instead took more than 400 witness statements, interviewed over 100 people, reviewed more than 1,400 documents and assembled timelines using historical floor plans and photographs. They also reviewed hundreds of hours of Brand’s performances, interviews and television appearances.
Judge Joel Bennathan remanded Brand in custody after the verdicts and said he faced a significant prison sentence. The court scheduled sentencing for Monday, Nov. 9. Police said their investigation continues into other reports; those matters remain separate from Thursday’s convictions.
