Russell Brand to be sentenced for rape and assaults

Updated / Monday, Getty The judge has already warned Brand to expect a lengthy prison sentence British comedian and actor Russell Brand is set to return to court today to be sentenced for raping a young woman and sexually assaulting three other women. Brand, 51, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London 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. Russell Brand leaving Southward Crown Court in a police van last week 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. Russell Brand, with his wife Laura Gallacher, arriving at Southwark Crown Court last week 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 a 21-year-old woman 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. Court artist sketch of Russell Brand listening to Mr Justice Bennathan in court last week 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 woman during a visit to the Capital Radio studios in London, pouncing on her as she walked out of a room.