Comedian Russell Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and a Hollywood star, was jailed for 10-and-a-half years yesterday after he was convicted of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three more around two decades ago.
Brand – the former husband of US pop singer Katy Perry who in recent years moved away from the mainstream – was convicted on Thursday of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three more between 2004 and 2009. He had denied all the charges.
The 51-year-old stood in the dock at London’s Southwark Crown Court as Judge Joel Bennathan sentenced him to 10 years and six months, saying he would serve two-thirds in custody before being released on licence.
Brand was a sexual predator who believed “fame meant you could act how you liked, when you liked, unhindered by the rules by which decent people live”, Bennathan told Brand.
Brand mouthed ‘I love you’ to his wife before he was led away by dock officers and down to the cells.
Earlier, one of Brand’s victims, whom Brand raped in 2009, said in a statement read by prosecutors that the trauma of the attack was ‘something I carry with me every day and it often feels never-ending’.
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