British comedian Russell Brand still faces a police investigation into rape allegations from two more women, after a London court sentenced him Monday to 10 years and six months in prison for rape and sexual assault.
The Metropolitan Police has submitted files on both complainants to the Crown Prosecution Service, a spokesperson said, and detectives previously interviewed Brand under caution. Prosecutors have not announced charges over those allegations.
At Southwark Crown Court, Judge Joel Bennathan praised the “determination and bravery” of the women who gave evidence. Brand, 51, must comply with sex offender notification requirements indefinitely. On November 5, a jury found Brand guilty of a 2009 rape at his Hampstead home.
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The jury also convicted him of three sexual assaults. Those involved grabbing a woman’s breasts at a Soho bar in 2004, attacking a colleague at a London radio station around 2004 or 2005, and assaulting a third woman he worked with in 2009.
Jurors acquitted him on two further rape counts and a charge of attempted indecent assault. Brand denied every charge.
Brand’s lawyers are reportedly weighing an appeal and could argue he did not receive a fair trial. Before the trial, they asked the court to throw out the case, arguing that 2023 media coverage of the allegations perverted the course of justice. The judge decided that excusing jurors who remembered the coverage was enough.
Under English law, Brand needs permission from the Court of Appeal to challenge his conviction or sentence, and he has 28 days to apply, counted from the verdict for the conviction and from sentencing for the sentence. That gives him until about December 3 to contest the conviction and December 7 to contest the sentence. A judge first reviews the application on paper, and the court can quash a conviction only if it finds it unsafe.
