Russell Brand to be sentenced for rape and assaults

Russell Brand is set to return to court today to be sentenced for raping one of his fans and sexually assaulting three other women

Brand, 51, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of raping a woman in 2009, as well as sexually assaulting female TV and radio workers between 2004 and 2009.

Mr Justice Bennathan ordered Brand to start his prison sentence immediately after being found guilty last Thursday afternoon.

The judge is expected to hear impact statements from Brand's victims and legal submissions from lawyers before passing sentence.

A four-week trial heard how Brand preyed on women who he encountered on his way to becoming one of Britain’s best-known comedians, TV and radio hosts and actors.

He claimed to have only ever had consensual sex during a "promiscuous" life, which he insisted had been packed with "idiocy" but never illegal.

But his victims told a different story, of a famous and powerful man who kissed and groped women within seconds of meeting them, pursued his sexual ambitions relentlessly and laughed at and gaslit women after the attacks.

Friends and former colleagues of Brand also came forward to give evidence of his ambition to sleep with 5,000 women and how his behaviour towards women became "normalised" as he became increasingly famous.

Brand was convicted by the jury of raping a 21-year-old fan in 2009, after meeting her following one of his stand-up shows at the Hammersmith Apollo.

The woman told jurors she was a huge Brand fan and had willingly engaged in a threesome with him backstage.

She agreed to go to Brand’s Hampstead home for sex a few days later, but a consensual encounter turned into rape when the comedian suddenly forced the woman into anal sex.

Another woman told the court how Brand groped her breasts in a bar in London, just seconds after she had been introduced to him at a party in 2004.

She recalled Brand’s "weird" grin as he carried out the sexual assault, brazenly grabbing her in the middle of a packed bar.

In 2005, Brand kissed and groped a third woman during a visit to the Capital Radio studios in London, pouncing on her as she walked out of a room.

She remembers looking to Brand’s entourage for help, but no one came to her aid, before she eventually managed to push the comedian away.

Brand was also convicted of putting his head into the groin of a female Channel 4 worker, after she had been forced to give him a massage in 2009.

The woman told the court how Brand had refused to continue a recording session unless she massaged him, and members of his entourage encouraged it instead of protecting her.

Brand was also confronted by his own words from his 2007 book, My Booky Wook, during the trial, including a boast that he would not relent in his pursuit of sex before getting his "birthright orgasm".

Brand, who claimed to be the victim of a media conspiracy, was convicted by the jury of rape and three sexual assaults and cleared of two further charges of rape and one allegation of attempted indecent assault.

In the wake of his convictions, the Metropolitan Police revealed that Brand is currently under investigation over two further rape allegations.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said his officers are braced for "many, many more" possible victims of Brand to come forward, while Prime Minister Andy Burnham called Brand’s crimes "horrifying".

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy warned there has not been enough change in media organisations to stop celebrities like Brand from preying on women.

"We need far more robust processes in place to protect women like the women who bravely came forward in the Russell Brand case to make sure that they are protected and treated seriously," she said.

"Hand on heart, I don’t think we can say that this couldn’t happen today," she added.

One of the comedian’s former producers, Jack Bayles, who was accused of encouraging the 2009 forced massage, has been asked to "step back" from production of two BBC sitcoms by TV production company Various Artists Limited in the wake of the verdicts.

The Victims' Commissioner Claire Waxman has called for a new legal duty on judges to direct juries on rape myths and misconceptions, if they arise during a trial.

The call came after Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter, put forward arguments that the comedian could not be a rapist as his accusers had not screamed, fought back or run away when they were being attacked.

After the guilty verdicts, Mr Winter was also seen verbally abusing Sunday Times journalist Rosamund Urwin in the courthouse corridor.

Ms Urwin was one of the journalists who first exposed Brand as a sexual predator, and a centrepiece of Brand’s defence case had been that media reporting had tainted the evidence in the criminal trial.

Mr Winter announced on Friday that he has self-referred himself to the Bar Standards Board after seeing media reports of the incident at court.

Brand, who boasts millions of online followers and had still been broadcasting his Christian sermons during the trial, has now spent four nights in prison since the conclusion of his trial.

The judge has already warned him to expect a lengthy prison sentence.