The comedian and actor, 51, was convicted after a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court and has been remanded in custody until sentencing on Monday. He denied all charges throughout.
Russell Brand has been found guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others between 2004 and 2009. The 51-year-old comedian and actor was convicted at Southwark Crown Court after jurors deliberated for eight and a half hours. He was cleared of three further charges. Mr Justice Bennathan remanded him in custody ahead of sentencing on Monday, telling him the consequence of the verdicts was “inevitably a significant custodial term”. The Crown Prosecution Service is also seeking to bring further charges.
The verdicts
Brand was convicted of raping a 21-year-old fan in 2009, after she attended one of his shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting an MTV worker at a party in a Soho bar in 2004, and of sexually assaulting a Capital Radio worker in a corridor in 2005. The fourth conviction was for sexually assaulting a Channel 4 employee during a forced massage in 2009.
Jurors cleared him of three charges: two of rape and one of attempted indecent assault. These related to an alleged rape at the 1999 Labour Party conference, an alleged oral rape of the MTV worker in a toilet after the Soho party, and an alleged attempt to indecently assault an MTV worker at her workplace.
As the verdicts were read out, Brand closed his eyes. Before the jury returned, he looked at his wife, Laura Gallacher, and said: “Laura, I love you.” She had supported him throughout the trial. She bowed her head at the first guilty verdict, and was seen crying and holding hands with an aide in the public gallery. She left court soon after and was driven away in a waiting car with the couple’s security team.
What the court heard
The prosecution said Brand treated women as a “disposable commodity”. Riel Karmy-Jones KC called him a “sexual predator” and told jurors: “They didn’t matter to him. He didn’t even need to know their names. They were just a means to an end.” The court heard evidence from women who said he exploited his fame, in some cases forcing sexual contact within seconds of meeting them, in pursuit of a goal of sleeping with 5,000 women.
The Hammersmith Apollo fan, who was in a relationship at the time, said she went to Brand’s £2.3m Hampstead home a few days after the show. She told jurors they had consensual sex but that Brand then raped her. She later met him at the Edinburgh Festival, where she said he apologised after she told him he had treated her “like an animal”.
The MTV worker said Brand grabbed her breasts at a party of former colleagues in the Nordic bar in Soho. She said she did not report it at the time because of the “lad culture” of the period. “He was a celebrity and it would be his word against mine,” she told the court. “I just thought the odds weren’t in my favour.”
The Capital Radio worker said Brand pinned her to a wall during a visit to the station in 2005 and groped and kissed her. She said members of his entourage laughed as she looked to them to intervene.
The Channel 4 employee told the court that two members of Brand’s entourage, Jack Bayles and Gareth Roy, pressed her to give him a massage during a recording session in 2009. She said Brand then thrust his head into her groin. “I was so repulsed by the situation,” she said, adding that she complained afterwards to her bosses at the broadcaster.
Brand, who is a born-again Christian and told the court he wore the “full armour of God”, denied every allegation. He argued that he had been “destroyed” by a “trial by media” after The Times, the Sunday Times and a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary reported allegations against him in 2023. His barrister argued that coverage had “poisoned the well” and made a fair trial impossible, and asked why his accusers did not “kick and scream” more. The trial judge had earlier rejected an attempt by Brand to stop the trial going ahead because of negative media coverage.
Remanded in custody
Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, asked for bail over the weekend as an “act of humanity”, so that Brand could put his affairs in order and say goodbye to his children. He said Brand wanted to explain the convictions to his two daughters and son, aged nine, eight and three, and that one child had celebrated a birthday on Wednesday and was not yet aware of the verdicts. Mr Winter said Brand would surrender his passport and report to police, adding: “The prospect of him being able to disappear from justice is zero.”
The judge refused. “I regret the hardship caused to the children, of course,” Mr Justice Bennathan said. But he said Brand “has considerable resources” and added: “Whatever the good intentions of the family and the defendant today, I think there are substantial grounds to fear he might, in the end, not feel able to come along and face his sentence.”
Brand made “OK” gestures to his defence team and repeatedly said “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good” as he was taken from the dock. He replied “Yes, my Lord” when remanded.
Exchange with a journalist
As he left the courtroom, Mr Winter spoke to Rosamund Urwin, the Sunday Times journalist who had reported on the allegations. He said: “I hope you are pleased with yourself.” She was heard to reply: “I’m pleased justice has been done.” Mr Winter responded: “Well, it wasn’t. You f***ed it,” and added: “Congratulations.”
Ben Taylor, the editor of The Sunday Times, called the outburst “reprehensible”. He told Times Radio that Mr Winter was “impugning the integrity of a jury… who have sat there solemnly and done their duty, and the judge who oversaw the case and everybody else involved”.
Further allegations
It can now be reported that the Crown Prosecution Service is seeking to bring further charges against Brand. He has been accused of raping two more women, one of whom was a 16-year-old schoolgirl. The CPS is seeking charges in relation to the allegations by the teenager, who is accused of being groomed when Brand was 30.
She was known as “Alice” in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme that first exposed Brand in 2023. She claimed that a BBC car took her from school to his house, where she was later abused. She said that during a three-month relationship he called her “my little dolly” and that she had to punch him to stop an oral rape. The jury did not hear that Brand faces “outstanding charges” over the allegations, which emerged in legal argument.
Reaction
The BBC, which received more than a dozen complaints of sexual misconduct about Brand during his time as a Radio 2 DJ from 2005 to 2008, said there “can be no place for the abuse of power”. It added that the industry must work together to ensure “that anyone who suffers at someone else’s hand feels able to report it”.
A spokesman for The Times and The Sunday Times said the verdict was “a testament to the courage of the women who came forward”. The spokesman added that many women who took part in the investigation did not have their cases brought before a court, and that their contributions “were vital in bringing these issues to light”.
Channel 4 said the outcome “belongs to all of the women who had the courage to speak out”. It called the verdict “a powerful demonstration of why fearless, independent, investigative journalism in the public interest matters”.
