Key Points

  • Russell Brand, 51, was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault at Southwark Crown Court in London on Thursday 5 November 2026.
  • The jury acquitted him of two counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault, after deliberating for eight and a half hours over three days.
  • The seven charges involved six women, with alleged incidents between 1999 and 2009.
  • Judge Mr Justice Bennathan remanded Brand in custody and warned him he faces a “significant custodial term”.
  • Sentencing is set for Monday 9 November 2026 at the same court.

British comedian Russell Brand was found guilty of rape and three sexual assaults by a London jury on Thursday, after a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

What happened: Jury convicts Brand on four of seven charges

A jury at Southwark Crown Court in London found Russell Brand guilty on Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, ending a three-week trial that began on 12 October. The 51-year-old comedian and actor was acquitted of two further counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault. The jury deliberated for eight and a half hours over three days before returning its verdicts.

The rape conviction relates to a 21-year-old fan Brand met after one of his stand-up shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. The three sexual assault convictions cover separate incidents: an assault on a woman at a bar in Soho in 2004, an assault on a radio worker in a corridor at Choice FM in 2005, and an assault on a Channel 4 worker during a forced massage in 2009.

Brand was cleared of raping a woman he met at a cabaret show on the fringes of the 1999 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, and of trying to drag an MTV worker into a toilet to indecently assault her in 2001. The seven charges in total involved six women, with alleged incidents spanning 1999 to 2009.

Brand had denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all seven charges. His defence argued the encounters had either been consensual or had been reinvented or re-imagined. Prosecutors had described him as a ruthless sexual predator who used his fame to target women.

The case began with a joint investigation published in 2023 by The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, in which four women accused Brand of rape and sexual assault. The Metropolitan Police opened a criminal investigation later that year. Brand was first charged in April 2025 with five counts against four women, and faced an additional count of rape and one of sexual assault in December 2025.

Why it matters

Brand was once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters, a stand-up star who went on to Hollywood films including Get Him to the Greek and Arthur. The verdict closes a case that has run for more than three years since the first public allegations, and it is one of the most high-profile celebrity convictions in a British court in recent years.

The judge’s warning leaves little doubt about what comes next. Addressing Brand after the verdicts, Mr Justice Bennathan said: “You’ve been convicted of a number of offences including rape. The consequence of that is inevitably a significant custodial term.” Variety has reported that a rape conviction in the UK can bring up to 19 years in prison, or a life sentence depending on the seriousness of the offence, while the maximum sentence for sexual assault is 10 years.

The verdict came on the same day Hong Kong jailed activist Joshua Wong for 10 more years, making it a day of major court outcomes around the world. For Brand, who built a second career as an online commentator with a large following, the conviction is likely to end his public career in its current form.

What happens next

Brand was remanded in custody immediately after the verdict and will remain in custody until his sentencing hearing on Monday 9 November at Southwark Crown Court. The judge will then decide the length of his prison sentence, with the four convictions taken together.

Legal pressure on prominent figures is mounting in other arenas too — in Washington, Republicans are moving to force a House impeachment vote against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth next week. But Brand’s case is now a matter for the court alone: sentencing on Monday will set the scale of the punishment for offences that stretched across a decade of his rise to fame.

Sources: Reuters (original report, 5 November 2026) and NME (independent report, 5 November 2026), with corroboration from USA Today, The Wrap and UNILAD. Facts verified against the original report and one independent source. Image is AI-recreated, not the original photograph.