'Significant custodial term' Russell Brand found guilty in rape and sexual assault trial | National news

Russell Brand is facing years in prison after being found guilty of raping one of his fans and sexually assaulting three women during his showbiz career.

Brand, now 51, preyed on women he encountered while becoming one of Britain’s best-known stand-up comedians, a lauded TV and radio host, and a Hollywood movie star.

His victims came to court to reveal how Brand had forced them into sexual activity, sometimes within seconds of them first meeting, using his immense fame to pursue a goal of sex with 5,000 women.

At Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, a jury found Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, after deliberating for eight and a half hours.

He was cleared by the jury of two counts of rape and one charge of attempted indecent assault.

Brand, who told his wife Laura Gallacher “I love you” after entering the dock, displayed no emotion as the jury delivered its verdicts, at the end of a trial that lasted nearly four weeks.

The jury found him guilty of groping another MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet.

Brand was convicted of kissing and groping a Capital Radio worker after encountering her in a corridor in 2005.

He was found guilty of raping a 21-year-old fan after meeting her at a 2009 stand-up show at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Brand was also convicted by the jury of sexually assaulting a Channel 4 worker in 2009 when she had been forced to give him a massage.

Brand was found not guilty by the jury of raping a woman he met at a cabaret show on the fringes of the 1999 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.

He was also cleared of trying to drag an MTV worker in to a toilet to indecently assault her in 2001.

After the verdict, Mr Justice Bennathan said: “Sit down Mr Brand.

“Mr Winter, Ms Karmy-Jones, just on what happens next given the verdict on count six at least, obviously a custodial sentence of some length will result.”

The judge said the case was “very well prepared”, adding the sentencing hearing would take place on Monday.

Brand had claimed to be the victim of a media conspiracy to paint him as a sexual predator and insisted in court that consent to him was “more important than sex itself”.

But he faced the compelling evidence of six women who accused him of crimes stretching from 1999 to 2009.

Brand was also confronted with his own words from his 2007 book in which he claimed sex was a “birthright” and friends who revealed his relentless pursuit of sleeping with 5,000 women.