Russell Brand jailed for 10.5 years as police receive more complaints

The sentence and the verdict

Russell Brand, 51, was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison by Judge Joel Bennathan at Southwark Crown Court in London on Monday, 9 November. A jury had found him guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, offences that took place between 2004 and 2009. Nine years of the term relate to the rape of a woman, and the rest covers assaults on three women who work in television and radio. He is expected to serve two-thirds of the sentence, after which a supervised period on licence can follow. He was cleared of three other counts and denied all the allegations during the trial.

The judge's remarks

Bennathan said Brand's fame had protected him for years and that the people around him had tolerated his behaviour, which would now end. He called Brand a 'sexual predator' and said women keep the right to say no, whatever they wear, wherever they go or whatever they drink. He also criticised the 'enablers' who witnessed assaults by the comedian. Andrew Thomas KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, welcomed the judge's statement.

Raping or sexually assaulting someone is a crime, and blame lies entirely with the perpetrator.

Ciara Bergman, chief executive of Rape Crisis England & Wales, called the remarks 'hugely important'. Nine of the 10.5 years relate to the rape count, as the chart below shows.

New complaints and the police response

London police said after the verdict that they had received several complaints during and since the trial, and that they are triaging a new wave of reports from several people. Police were already investigating two further rape allegations, and the Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing two more. Scotland Yard chief Mark Rowley has said he expects many more complaints to come. Ian Winter, Brand's lawyer, said the complainants were not particularly vulnerable and did not resist, scream or even try to leave, remarks that drew wide criticism. Education minister Lucy Powell called some of the defence's remarks unbelievably bleak, and on Saturday, 7 November, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the government should consider reforming rape trials.

Goldsmith's allegations

Jemima Goldsmith, 52, known professionally as Jemima Khan, posted a long statement on X on Monday, 9 November, about her relationship with Brand from 2013 to 2014. She described violence, coercive control and abuse, and said she had to call police in 2014 to have Brand removed from her home after a violent altercation. She chose not to report it at the time, worried about press attention on her sons, who were teenagers then. She has not seen or spoken to him since 2014 and did not cite sexual abuse in her own case. She said she had offered help to police and journalists investigating Brand.

Reactions and the prison

Donald Trump Jr. posted a video to Rumble on Tuesday, 10 November, arguing that the prosecution was politically motivated and tying the sentence to Brand's religious conversion and conservative views. He questioned the timeframe of the allegations and the evidence, saying:

He was convicted, by the way, with no forensic evidence, no DNA, no police report from the time now decades old, on allegations dating back to 1999.

Brand's US-based wellness business, Reborn, began selling $34.99 'Free Russell' T-shirts after the sentencing, featuring his image and a statement accusing authorities of trying to 'shut me up, shut me down, and squeeze me off every platform'. British outlets reported that Brand had been taken to Wandsworth Prison in south London, a Victorian-era jail with a capacity of 1,466 inmates. An independent monitoring board report published last month described unsafe, overcrowded, unsanitary and squalid conditions, and counted 360 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults over the past year. The prison and Britain's Justice Ministry declined to comment on his location.