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A jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted Russell Brand, 51, on Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, and acquitted him of two further counts of rape and one of attempted indecent assault. The rape conviction concerns a woman he met after a 2009 stand-up show and later raped at his London home. All seven verdicts were unanimous, from a jury of eight men and four women, after deliberations across three days. Mr Justice Bennathan told him: “You’ve been convicted of a nu

Sandra Birchmore joined the Stoughton Police Explorers program as a young teenager. Prosecutors say Matthew Farwell, one of the officers who ran it, began a sexual relationship with her when she was 15 and he was 27, and that nearly a decade later, when she was 23 and pregnant and a friend had reported the relationship to his own department, he strangled her and staged it as a suicide. Farwell has pleaded not guilty; the defence says she took her own life after he ended the affair. Before closin

The jury in Russell Brand’s trial retired at Southwark Crown Court just before 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday, after Mr Justice Bennathan finished summing up more than three weeks of evidence. “I can only accept a verdict from all 12 of you that is a unanimous verdict,” he told the eight men and four women, directing them to a bundle of photographs and diagrams and telling them to take their time — they would not be criticised for taking too long. Brand, 51, denies three counts of rape, three of sexual as

Ian Winter KC closed the defence case for Russell Brand at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, opening with an 1864 passage from John Henry Newman and telling jurors that 2023 media reporting had “poisoned the wells” of justice by prompting the complainants to come forward — that they did not make the “independent decision” to speak out. He said Brand is not a psychopath who rapes people and thinks it’s normal, that he respects it when a woman says no, and that “living a highly promiscuous life is

Riel Karmy-Jones KC closed the prosecution case against Russell Brand at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, telling jurors he treated women as a disposable commodity and a means to an end, that he exercised control and felt disdain toward them, and that “women as a whole were disposable who didn’t matter to him — he didn’t even need to know their names.” She ended: “We invite you to find him guilty on all counts.” Earlier, Mr Justice Bennathan gave the jury 19 pages of written legal directions, in

Laura Brand gave evidence for her husband at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, telling jurors he is caring and kind, a wonderful father, and that she feels very seen by him. She was 19 and he was 31 when they met at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006; she said she had had one previous partner, that on their first date she did not want to have full sex and he did not push, and that she felt entirely cared for. She also told the court he slept with other women while they dated, which is why they spli