Comedian and actor Russell Brand was sentenced Monday to 10 years and six months in prison for one rape and three sexual assaults against women in the 2000s.
The sentence was handed down at Southwark Crown Court in London, four days after a jury of eight men and four women found him guilty, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Brand, 51, was convicted of raping a woman at his west London home in 2009. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a London bar in 2004 and another woman at a London radio station in 2004 and 2005.
The jury acquitted him of two other rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. Six women had made allegations against him covering 1999 to 2009.
Brand had pleaded not guilty to all charges. During the trial, he suggested the claims were part of a coordinated attack on his character.
Before sentencing, the court heard statements from the women. One said she had been “in shock and turmoil for years.” The woman he raped said she had “struggled to sleep and eat.” Another statement called Brand “a sexual predator who has no remorse.”
His lawyer, Ian Winter, told the court that Brand is a “fundamentally different person today” than when the rape took place 17 years ago.
Brand was taken into custody last week after Judge Joel Bennathan refused him bail. “I regret the hardship caused to the children, of course,” the judge said. “But the hardship has been caused by serious criminal offending by their father.”
Brand rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and actor in Britain and Hollywood. In recent years he built a large online following as a podcaster and became a born-again Christian.
Police are also investigating further rape allegations made by two other women.