Russell Brand Convicted of Rape and Three Sexual Assaults, Cleared of Three Other Charges

Russell Brand was convicted on Thursday of raping a 21-year-old fan in 2009 and sexually assaulting three other women, the close of a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court that began with six accusers and seven charges. The jury cleared him of two further rape counts and one attempted indecent assault. Mr Justice Bennathan refused bail and told him to expect a significant custodial term when he's sentenced on Monday.

The verdicts, count by count

The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for roughly nine hours across two days. On the guilty side: Brand raped a young admirer in 2009, days after meeting her at one of his stand-up shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. He sexually assaulted an MTV worker at a party in a Soho bar in 2004, groping her breasts. He kissed and groped a radio worker at her workplace in 2005. And he sexually assaulted a woman working on a Channel 4 project in 2009, when she was made to give him a massage.

On the not-guilty side, the jury cleared him of raping a woman he met at a cabaret show on the fringes of the 1999 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, of orally raping the MTV worker in a bar toilet in 2004, and of an attempted indecent assault dating to 2001. The split matters: this wasn't a jury that split the difference. It weighed seven separate allegations and convicted on the four it found proved.

How the case got here

The case began in print and on television, not in a police station. In September 2023, a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4's Dispatches published allegations against Brand from several women. The Metropolitan Police opened an investigation that, according to the force, involved interviews with more than 100 witnesses and a review of thousands of documents. Prosecutors authorised charges on April 4, 2025. Brand pleaded not guilty to all seven charges and denied any wrongdoing throughout, and the trial opened at Southwark on October 12 with testimony from the six complainants, witnesses, and Brand himself.

In the room

Brand stood straight in the dock as the verdicts were read and closed his eyes as the rape conviction landed. The judge thanked the jury and called the case "very well prepared." On bail, he was blunt: "My current view is that I therefore have to remand you into custody." Brand was taken down to the cells. His wife, Laura Brand, left the court without him.

What happens next

Sentencing is Monday, November 9, in the same court. The judge has already told Brand the consequence of the verdicts is "a significant custodial term"; how that number is actually built — count by count, guideline by guideline — is its own story, and we walk through it here. Separately, the Metropolitan Police confirmed after the verdicts that investigations are continuing into two further allegations of rape made against Brand. They're allegations, not charges, and no trial's scheduled for them.

Reporting drawn from Reuters, CNN, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 5, 2026. Where reports differ on a detail, this piece follows the wire account.