Russell Brand Sentenced to Over 10 Years in Prison

Russell Brand was sentenced to ten years and six months in prison after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault in a U.K.-based trial. Brand was impassive at the result, per Sky News, but told his wife, Laura Brand, that “we’ll be okay” as he left the courtroom. The judge said Brand is likely to serve two-thirds of his sentence. Prior to the sentencing, the judge acknowledged factors that both mitigated and increased Brand’s sentence. He removed one year because, in the 17 years since the incidents he was on trial for, the judge said that Brand has been “doing good, especially in assisting those wrestling with addictions, often by funding treatment.” However, the judge also increased the sentence because one of his assaults included nonconsensually removing his condom and ejaculating inside of the woman.

Brand was convicted last week of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was found not guilty of two other counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault. The incidents he was accused of occurred between 1999 and 2009, against a total of six women. 

Prior to the sentencing, a victim statement by one of the women whom Brand sexually assaulted in 2009 was read. At the time Brand assaulted her, the anonymous woman was working at Channel Four, where he also worked as the host of a Big Brother spinoff. “I felt I lost my trust in people and felt that my working environment wasn’t safe,” she said in the statement, which prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC read aloud. “I feel like I was quite innocent before, and this burst that bubble,” she continued. “I felt powerless in that moment, and it had a knock-on effect on my confidence because I felt like I had no control on that day and there was nothing I could do about what he did to me.” She ended her statement by noting that she still struggles with her decision to speak out: “Everyone has an opinion about me and the others and the case, and I worry this will never go away and that it will haunt me every day, despite it being the right thing to do.”