Russell Brand Found Guilty of Rape, Sexual Assault

A London jury has found Russell Brand guilty of rape and sexual assault.

After a four-week, highly publicized trial at Southwark Crown Court, the jury delivered the verdicts on Thursday, finding the disgraced comedian, presenter and actor — best known for film roles in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and St. Trinian’s — guilty on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was found not guilty on two other rape charges and not guilty of attempted indecent assault.

Justice Bennathan had required a unanimous verdict from the jury on all seven charges. Brand, who had vehemently denied the claims, will now be remanded in custody and sentenced on Monday. He was denied bail.

The court was completely silent as the verdicts were read out. Afterwards, his wife, who accompanied him every day to court and described him as a “caring and kind, wonderful father,” could be seen holding back tears.

Sky News also reported that the Met Police has confirmed Brand is under investigation over further rape allegations.

Thursday’s guilty rape verdict relates to a woman who met Brand at a Hammersmith Apollo gig of his in 2009. “I was expecting to have sex with him,” the victim told police about going to Brand’s house a week later. After consensual vaginal sex, Brand turned her onto her front and anally raped her. She recalled feeling as though “she couldn’t speak or breathe” and said she was in pain. When finally able to speak, the woman told Brand to stop “a few times quietly and then really loudly.” The anal rape lasted “minutes,” and Brand “looked absolutely fucking horrified” when it was over, she said. She expected him to apologize, but he only told her: “You need to clear up the mess you made.”

Brand was also found guilty of three sexual assaults. One was his grabbing a victim’s breasts at a bar in Soho in 2004; another was an incident in 2004/2005 at Capital Radio where he pushed a victim up against a wall, kissing her and grabbing at her body, breasts, sides and buttocks “aggressively”; and lastly, an incident where he put his head and nose in the “vaginal area” of a female colleague in 2009.

He was cleared of oral rape and also found not guilty of raping a woman in a Bournemouth hotel room after the Labour Party conference in 1999. He was also absolved of an attempted indecent assault, in which a woman had claimed he tried to drag her toward the men’s toilet at the MTV offices in 2001.

The Hollywood Reporter followed the court proceedings closely. The jury watched police interviews with all six complainants, whose identities were kept anonymous throughout the trial. The jury was also shown multiple police interviews with Brand, in which he read from a pre-prepared statement. Brand also testified at the trial, maintaining: “I know what ‘no’ means. … Consent is a fundamental, essential and necessary and in many ways more important than sex itself.”

Brand said he was unable to persuade anyone to testify on his behalf, confirming his lawyer’s statement that “no one will touch [him] with a bargepole.” His wife, with whom he shares three children, did however tell the court that Brand is a “caring and kind, wonderful father” and that she feels “very seen by him.”

Laura Brand confirmed that her husband had been baptized in April 2024, after the rape and sexual assault allegations against him came to light.

The court also heard from his former personal assistant, Helen Berger, who had described Brand’s “insane sexual appetite.”

Over the course of a month, the prosecution sought to expose Brand as a “ruthless, sexual predator” who allegedly understood that these women weren’t consenting. None of them “sought the limelight” or “any kind of publicity,” said lead prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones in the closing arguments on Friday, Oct. 30. “None of these women has anything to gain — except perhaps some closure,” she said. “[Brand] didn’t listen when I said no, he didn’t listen, he didn’t care. … In the rape cases, he just kept on going until he achieved his ultimate aim and ejaculated.”

Brand’s legal team, on the other hand, rejected the claim from the prosecution that his defense was “a lot of half-truths, spun into lies.” Ian Winter had told the court of the “devastating impact” of Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary, in which rape and sexual assault allegations against Brand first came to light and kick-started a police investigation in 2023. “There is nothing random at all about these people coming forward… They have all come forward because they have been brought at the invitation of that program,” said Winter. He also told the court that Channel 4 and Sunday Times journalists “poisoned the well of justice” by prompting these women to speak up.

“Living a highly promiscuous life is entirely lawful however morally distasteful you may find it,” continued Winter in the defense’s closing arguments on Monday, Nov. 2. “Even being manipulative in the pursuit of consensual sex is completely lawful.” Winter said that Brand’s behavior after the alleged attacks shows that he believed the women were consenting. The defense argued that there is no evidence that “Brand is some kind of psychopath who rapes people and thinks it’s normal… The fact he behaved normally during and after all of those ‘rapes’ tells you what you need to know.”