Sentencing: Russell Brand receives 10-year prison term
The British comedian was convicted on four counts following a trial where six women testified to incidents spanning 2004 to 2009.
By Tessa Cooper ·
Russell Brand, a 51-year-old British comedian known for shifting from MTV host to political commentator, received a prison sentence on Monday. The term exceeds a decade.
Justice Bennathan handed down the verdict at Southwark Crown Court in London. The judge stated the total sentence is ten years and six months. Brand was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.
A jury returned the guilty verdicts last week after a four-week trial. Brand faces seven charges in total, but the jury cleared him on three of them. The convictions cover incidents between 2004 and 2009.
The jury found Brand guilty of anally raping a woman in 2009. He also sexually assaulted three other women during that period. One assault occurred at a bar, another at a radio station, and the third at a television studio.
Brand has denied all charges. He maintains that he never engaged in non-consensual sex. During sentencing, four of the complainants provided victim impact statements to the court.
Three statements were read by the prosecution, while one woman spoke from behind a curtain. The women have not been publicly named, and the trial was not televised. One complainant said the 2009 rape is something she carries with her every day. She noted that she no longer trusts her instincts as she once did.
Another woman described feeling physically sick when seeing Brand in the media after his fame grew. A third stated that hearing his voice on television made her jump for years. The fourth said her working environment felt unsafe after the assault at a TV studio.
Brand sat in the courtroom wearing the same suit he wore when convicted on Thursday. He held a set of white rosary beads while the statements were read. His wife Laura and his father were also present in the court.
The prosecution argued for a long sentence, citing aggravating circumstances in the rape case, such as Brand removing a condom. The defense countered that Brand is a fundamentally different person now than he was during the crimes. The judge called Brand a sexual predator before ordering him taken to the cells.
