Highlights
- A London jury convicted Russell Brand of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault on Thursday.
- Judge Joel Bennathan denied bail and said a significant prison term is inevitable at Monday’s sentencing.
- Jurors acquitted him on two rape counts, while police probe separate rape allegations from two other women.
A London jury found Russell Brand guilty Thursday (November 5, 2026) of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Judge Joel Bennathan told him, “The consequence of that is inevitably a significant custodial term.”
The 51-year-old was taken into custody after the verdict and will be sentenced Monday. Bennathan rejected a bail request because of the possibility he might flee.
Before entering the dock, Brand told his wife, author and illustrator Laura Gallacher, “I love you.” He closed his eyes as the rape verdict was read but otherwise showed no emotion.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for around eight and a half hours. Jurors cleared him of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.
The rape conviction involves a 21-year-old fan he met after one of his Hammersmith Apollo shows in 2009. She testified that she refused anal sex during a second encounter at his home and that he did it anyway. “I did not consent to that,” she told the jury.
She told police she was struggling to breathe and repeatedly asked him, “Can you stop?” When she told her father, he said: “That is rape.”
A friend told jurors she stayed silent because “she didn’t think she would be believed.”
The sexual assault convictions involve a woman whose breasts he grabbed at a 2004 party, a woman he kissed and groped at a London radio station in 2004 or 2005, and a woman who testified he pressed his face into her groin while recording an advertisement in 2009.
Brand denied every charge. After his 2025 charges, he said he had been a fool and a sex addict, but “what I never was, was a rapist.”
On the stand, he told the court consent is “more important than sex itself.” He admitted that much of his earlier life went beyond reckless philandering.
“Not guilty is my plea in every single case,” he said.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones described a different man, telling jurors Brand was “ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative.”
After the verdict, senior Crown prosecutor David Roberts said, “Russell Brand was predatory and used his celebrity status to commit sexual crimes.”
Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy of the Metropolitan Police said Brand “used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women.” He credited “the extraordinary courage, resilience and determination of the women who came forward.”
Furphy said he hopes the verdict makes clear that “no one is above the law.”
Police opened their investigation after a September 2023 report by Channel 4, The Sunday Times, and The Times. Channel 4 said its thoughts are “first and foremost with the six women involved in the case.”
The case may not be closed. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said an investigation into rape allegations made by two other women remains ongoing.
