Russell Brand awaiting prison sentence after being found guilty of rape and sex assaults

Russell Brand is facing years in prison after being found guilty of raping one of his fans and sexually assaulting three women during his showbiz heyday.

Brand, now 51, preyed on women he encountered while becoming one of Britain’s best-known stand-up comedians, a lauded TV and radio host, and a Hollywood movie star.

His victims came to court to reveal how Brand had forced them into sexual activity, sometimes within seconds of them first meeting, using his fame to determinedly pursue a goal of sex with 5,000 women.

Southwark Crown Court heard how Brand, who once boasted he would not relent in his pursuit of sex before getting his “birthright orgasm”, ignored pleas from women for him to stop.

Six women gave evidence against Brand, while the former comedian, who was once married to Katy Perry, could not persuade any of his celebrity friends or former showbiz colleagues to give evidence in his defence.

On Thursday, a jury found Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

He was cleared of two further charges of rape and one allegation of attempted indecent assault.

Brand displayed no emotion as he was found guilty, other than to close his eyes when the guilty verdict on the rape charge was announced.

He loudly replied “yes My Lord” when he was remanded into custody, having been told he will receive a lengthy sentence.

Before entering the dock to hear the verdicts, Brand said “I love you” to his wife Laura Gallacher, the daughter of Ryder Cup winning golfer Bernard Gallacher.

Ms Gallacher was seen to hunch over in the public gallery when Brand was told he now faces an inevitable prison term.

His barrister, Ian Winter KC, made a plea for Brand to be given bail over the weekend as an “act of humanity” so that he could say goodbye to his children, but the judge refused over fears that he would flee instead of returning to court.

Brand now faces the prospect of a lengthy prison term when he is sentenced on Monday next week, just over three years after first being exposed as a rapist and sexual predator.

The Met has also confirmed investigations are ongoing into two allegations of rape made against Brand.

At pre-trial court hearings, it was revealed one of the complaints comes from a woman who dated Brand when he was 30 and she was a 16-year-old schoolgirl.

It can also now be reported that more women came forward to police after Brand was first accused, and prosecutors are assessing whether to bring further charges.

Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who led the Metropolitan Police investigation, paid tribute to the “extraordinary courage, resilience and determination” of the women who spoke out against Brand.

He said: “Despite intense media and public scrutiny, they relived deeply personal and traumatic experiences and placed their trust in us. Without their bravery, this outcome would not have been possible.

“Brand used his influence, status and fame to prey on and exploit women. As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement. I hope this conviction sends a clear message that no one is above the law, no matter how famous or powerful they may be.”

Meanwhile, David Roberts – Senior Crown Prosecutor in the London Rape and Serious Sexual Assault Unit – said: “Russell Brand was predatory and used his celebrity status to commit sexual crimes. He was a manipulator with an insatiable desire to get what he wanted regardless of whether consent was given or not.”

In September 2023, an investigation by journalists from The Sunday Times, The Times, and Channel 4 Dispatches published accusations from women who said they had been raped, sexual abused, and degraded by Brand.

The revelations prompted four women to come forward to accuse Brand of criminal offences, while another two women came forward once Brand had been charged.

At the height of his success, Brand was named Shagger Of The Year three times in a row by The Sun newspaper as his behaviour towards women was accepted and even celebrated.

But evidence at his criminal trial revealed Brand to be a man who abused his fame to obtain sex while treating women as objects, while his entourage and showbiz bosses faced accusations of “normalising” sexual misconduct and failing to act on complaints against the star.

Brand got his big TV break in 2004 when he was chosen to host Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and within a couple of months of the show starting he had sexually assaulted a woman in the Nordic bar in Soho, central London.

At a party of his former MTV colleagues, Brand grabbed the woman’s breasts while stood in the middle of the bar.

She accused him of dragging her to the men’s toilets and orally raping her, but the jury found Brand not guilty on that count.

The woman told the court the “lad culture” of the time meant she did not report her interaction with Brand to police, telling the court: “He was a celebrity and it would be his word against mine.

“I just thought the odds weren’t in my favour.”

A worker at Capital Radio said Brand forced himself on to her during a visit to the station in 2005, pinning her to a wall while he groped and “sloppily” kissed her.

She told jurors members of Brand’s entourage watched on as the attack happened, and did nothing but laugh as she looked over pleading for them to intervene.

A Russell Brand superfan told the court how she willingly had a threesome with the comedian in 2009 after one of his shows at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Overawed by Brand’s fame, the 21-year-old – who was in a relationship at the time – agreed to go to the star’s £2.3 million Hampstead townhouse a few days later for sex.

But she said the encounter started with Brand unnervingly forcing her to strip, shower, and brush her teeth before they went to bed together.

She told jurors they had “awkward” consensual sex, but Brand then raped her by forcing her into non-consensual anal sex and ignored her cries of pain.

Women were a “disposable commodity” to Brand, said prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC, who dubbed him a “sexual predator”.

“They didn’t matter to him. He didn’t even need to know their names. They were just a means to an end.”

The fan who was raped at Brand’s home later bumped into him at Edinburgh Festival, and said he apologised after she said he had treated her “like an animal”.

In 2009, during a recording session at Channel 4, members of Brand’s entourage, Jack Bayles and Gareth Roy, forced a young female staffer to give him a massage, the court heard.

When she had reluctantly agreed, Brand thrust his head into the woman’s groin and only got up again when apparently insulted that she had commented on his “bony” body.

“I was so repulsed by the situation”, she told the court, and said she complained afterwards to her Channel 4 bosses.

Brand was cleared by the jury of raping a woman at the Labour Party conference in 1999, after meeting them at the end of one of his cabaret shows.

He was also cleared of trying to indecently assault an MTV worker after dragging her towards a toilet at her workplace.

Brand was sacked by MTV after mocking 9/11, he shot to fame through Channel 4’s Big Brother, landed his own BBC Radio 2 show, and went on to star alongside the likes of Tom Cruise, Mila Kunis, Jonah Hill, and Helen Mirren in Hollywood movies like Arthur, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Rock Of Ages.

He dabbled in left-wing politics as his stardom waned, reinvented himself as a wellness guru, and turned to podcasts focusing on alt-right talking points and conspiracy theories.

Brand’s treatments for alcohol, drug, and sex addiction were largely kept out of the trial, but the jury did hear from his former PA Helen Berger, who recalled him conducting interviews in his underpants, getting depressed after sex, and treating women poorly.

She quit after growing “sick of him”, and told the court the team around Brand at the time were “normalising bad behaviour”.

Brand denied all the charges against him, and suggested the whole case was a conspiracy cooked up by the media.

Asked in the witness box if he blames the media for his downfall, Brand replied: “In some ways.”

But faced with the allegations against him, Brand could only insist that he values the idea of consent in sex while he struggled to remember the interactions with his accusers.

Brand also packed his defence case with a series of arguments that the victims could not have been raped because they did not run away, fight back, or scream for help while being attacked.

His barrister, Ian Winter KC, also argued to the jury that Brand could not be a rapist as he had not been accused during the #MeToo movement.

Brand’s own words from his 2007 book My Booky Wook also came back to haunt him, calling himself “demonically sexy” and admitting he could be “uneasy company” when in the pursuit of sex.

He wrote: “If I want something – whether it’s a job or a woman – I will determinedly, resolutely, remove anything that’s in the way, until I possess the object of my desire.”

Brand continued to make podcasts with his wife during the trial, telling his millions of followers on YouTube, Rumble, and X that he had felt God’s presence in court with him.

But Brand now has to face up to the reality that he is a convicted rapist, who will be imprisoned for several years and spent the rest of his life on the sex offender’s register.