It was the best of trials, the worst of trials and, above all, one of the strangest criminal cases imaginable.
Viewed objectively, Rex v Russell Edward Brand presented the prosecution with a difficult case. The defence appeared limited and, most importantly, the trial contained little physical evidence.
What were we doing in Southwark Crown Court, examining the remnants of a period when Brand was, by his own description, a wild-haired and promiscuous celebrity; a priapic figure in guyliner who used his fame to facilitate sex and admitted he had devoted much of his life to what now seemed like reckless philandering and foolishness?
He faced three rape charges, three counts of sexual assault and one charge of attempted indecent assault. The alleged offences took place between 17 and 27 years ago.
One of the most serious allegations involved a victim left bleeding and in pain. The least serious concerned an incident in which an arm was allegedly pulled for about 20 seconds.
Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, appeared constantly close to fury as he argued that the passage of time had made the case extraordinarily difficult to contest. It was easy to understand his frustration: the sequence of events had become blurred by decades of intervening life.
Both Brand and the complainants, who can be identified outside court only by anonymous numbers, had forgotten important details. Other memories, however, remained vivid and impossible to erase.
‘He changed suddenly from camp, friendly and effeminate to something monstrous,’ said Complainant One. ‘You treated me like an animal,’ Complainant Five wrote to Brand. ‘I felt as though my innocence had been taken,’ said Complainant Three.
Across the three-and-a-bit weeks of the trial, Russell Brand appeared to age dramatically, Jan Moir writes
Brand’s familiar exuberance faded under the prosecution questioning by Riel Karmy-Jones KC
For the prosecution, Riel Karmy-Jones KC described how the women had been left troubled by events dating back years and how they had been ‘haunted’ by what they alleged Brand had done.
In a voice as precise as a starched napkin, she told the jury that the women had ‘nothing to gain’ from coming forward, apart from perhaps ‘some closure’. Their evidence was compelling, but it was fair to wonder whether it would be sufficient to convict a prominent man of some of the most serious offences in English law.
The trial had been expected to last between six and ten weeks. Instead, it concluded after little more than three.
After two days of deliberation, the jury of eight men and four women found Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two further rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.
The verdicts established a pattern of behaviour. They did not necessarily mean that some women were believed and others were not; rather, some allegations had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Justice can be elusive, especially in rape cases where the truth may remain obscured. Often the case comes down to one person’s word against another’s, memory against desire, and a search for justice alongside the destruction of a reputation.
There were few witnesses to the alleged encounters, which unfolded in the celebrity world of backstage rooms, television studios and video sets, then in bedrooms, bedsits, toilets and cars. They were accompanied by the insistent persuasion of a man described by his KC as ‘highly fanciable’ and who believed he had ‘a birthright to an orgasm’.
Perhaps the most extraordinary moments came when Brand took the witness stand.
Under oath, he initially seemed entirely at ease. For more than two weeks, the comedian-actor turned guru and preacher had sat behind the glass of the dock in Court 3, silent and seemingly powerless beneath the scrutiny of the proceedings.
Brand’s wife Laura Gallacher appeared overcome in the public gallery after the guilty verdicts
Photographers jostled for a picture as Brand was taken away in a prison van
Now he had returned to the spotlight, ready to speak and eager to be heard. He began with confidence, delivering his answers with his familiar theatricality.
Questioned by his own barrister, he called out his responses while repeatedly addressing the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, as ‘my lord’.
With closed eyes, it might have sounded like Brian Blessed, albeit with an estuary accent and an undertone of aggrieved martyrdom.
Before long, Brand was deploying his familiar verbal flourishes, using words such as ‘vivacious’, ‘lithe’ and ‘badinage’—even describing himself as ‘loquacious’.
With his hands clasped behind his back or resting in his pockets, he carried himself like a man convinced that the evidence was going his way.
Then Ms Karmy-Jones rose to cross-examine him, and the atmosphere shifted completely.
Her opening question was direct: ‘You blame the media, don’t you?’ Brand appeared to falter as an inner panic seemed to take hold.
‘Is that a difficult question?’ she asked during the silence that followed.
‘In some ways,’ he replied, suddenly subdued.
He recovered at moments, but more painful pauses followed, each one exposing cracks in the confident persona he had presented.
To an observer, the silences suggested a man under intense pressure, unable to produce an answer quickly enough and unwilling to accept that he was struggling.
Brand stood as he listened to Mr Justice Bennathan at Southwark Crown Court after being convicted of raping one fan and sexually assaulting three women
Brand held his Bible during a police interview in July 2025
It recalled Brand’s appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored earlier this year, when the self-styled ‘silver-tongued comedian’ spent more than 90 seconds trying to find a particular Bible passage he said had comforted him at an earlier hearing in the same courthouse. He seemed unsure where to look, in every sense.
Brand’s wife, Laura Gallacher, attended the trial almost every day and remained loyally at his side, calm and composed throughout.
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She smiled, held his hand and occasionally patted him reassuringly as they entered the court building.
Listening in a public gallery to allegations involving forced oral and anal sex, torn rectums and sexual exposure would be harrowing for anyone. Gallacher gave little outward indication of such distress.
On the 11th day, she appeared as a character witness for the father of her three children and described Brand as ‘caring, kind and a wonderful father’.
When Mr Winter asked whether her husband respected her wishes when she did not want to have sex, she answered: ‘Yes, absolutely.’
Gallacher is 12 years younger than Brand. She wears her hair in a bun like him, has embraced Christianity like him and appears beside him on their Sunday scripture podcasts, some of which attract more than 1.5 million views.
During her evidence, Brand was especially animated, mouthing words to her, smiling and offering encouragement from the dock.
Last Monday, Mrs Brand arrived dressed almost identically to her husband: both wore white shirts, flowing scarves, grey trousers, navy jackets and matching sunglasses. The striking resemblance prompted uncomfortable questions about whether her loyalty was simply that of a supportive wife or something more submissive within Brand’s religious orbit.
The court heard Brand described as a sexually voracious ‘monster’ determined to achieve his ambition of sleeping with 5,000 women
Brand became extraordinarily famous through frequent television appearances in the early 2000s
For Mr Winter, however, Gallacher was central to the defence case. He referred to her evidence during his closing argument.
‘She fell in love with that man knowing what he was doing. She married him and had three children with him,’ he told the jury, suggesting she would not have done so if Brand were ‘guilty as charged’.
But could anyone know that for certain? At times, the defence seemed uncertain about its destination, occasionally drifting towards arguments that treated a woman inviting a stranger back to her bedsit in the early hours as inherently suspicious.
Some women were portrayed as appearing ‘a little bit tipsy’, their clothing was questioned and the jury was told that ‘a man would have to be a psychopath to rape someone and ask if they were enjoying it’.
Mr Winter also asked why, if Brand had been so sexually promiscuous, only six women had come forward. It can now be reported that more women did so, but the Crown Prosecution Service sought to restrict the trial to six complainants.
How, then, had Brand avoided scrutiny for so long? The corrosive influence of celebrity runs through the case, distorting the judgment of everyone it touches, including Brand himself.
Complainant Five was portrayed by the defence as an obsessive Brand fan who met him backstage at a London concert and willingly joined a threesome.
Hi, I’m Alex Matthews, Editor of The Crime Desk.
Russell Brand has been convicted of rape and three sexual assaults. Our reporters Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull attended every day of the trial and spoke to Detective Inspector Laura Nelson, who explained why the women who accused him in the documentary were not part of this prosecution.
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Several days later, the 21-year-old went to Brand’s London home, having been drinking.
That circumstance arguably made her more vulnerable, not less. Brand might have been expected to show care towards a young, starstruck woman rather than use her to pursue what he called his sexual ‘birthright’ and force her into anal sex against her will.
Yet Mr Winter insisted that the jury was not there to pass moral judgment on Brand’s conduct.
‘Disgusting, distasteful, immoral—who cares?’ he said, arguing that Brand had engaged in a great deal of sex but none of it was unlawful. The jury reached a different conclusion.
I cannot pretend that the trial was comfortable to attend or easy to assess. Guilty or innocent? Maligned or malign? Despite my instinctive dislike of Brand—a conspiracy theorist who blames the media for almost everything—there were aspects of the case that were deeply troubling.
Allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand first emerged in a Channel 4 documentary and a newspaper investigation in 2023. Anonymous women made claims that had not been reported to police, something Brand said had devastated his life.
The six women in this trial independently contacted police after seeing the documentary. They had every right to do so, and they were right to seek the authorities’ help.
For some complainants, the encounters began consensually before allegedly taking a darker turn. Others said Brand attacked or grabbed them when an opportunity presented itself.
It is possible to believe that these women deserved respect, a hearing and the chance to seek justice, while also acknowledging the ethical questions raised by allegations reported many years later. If someone has sex with a stranger known to be highly sexualised, finds the encounter becomes unwanted, does not scream and reports an alleged rape decades afterward, how should that evidence be assessed?
The jury decided that the allegations could still be proved. That verdict is what matters.
During the three-and-a-bit weeks of proceedings, Russell Brand appeared to age by decades. Yesterday he looked drained, his charisma dimmed and his flamboyant highwayman swagger reduced to a distant memory.
He had been forced to confront the ghosts of the ‘idiotic, promiscuous’ man he says he once was. Brand now presents himself as a changed figure: a late-life, God-fearing Christian who has found comfort in faith.
He often brought a Bible to court and sometimes held a silver cross while sitting in the dock.
Brand now faces the prospect of years in prison, meaning that his religious conversion—seven months after the first allegations became public—may prove to have been a remarkably timely transformation.
For now, only Jesus can save him.