Russell Brand went on trial on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, facing three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault, according to The Guardian. The allegations cover a period between 1999 and 2009. Brand has pleaded not guilty to every charge.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Riel Karmy-Jones told the jury that the six complainants are all women, and that they had no connection to one another at the time of the alleged events and have none now. Each of them, she said, came forward on her own. The prosecutor described Brand as a sexual predator and said his conduct was ruthless, calculated and manipulative, the BBC and The Guardian reported.
Karmy-Jones said the accusations span a decade in which Brand's career was starting to take off. She told the court the alleged offences punctuate that period of his life.
Why it matters
The trial puts one of Britain's best-known comedians and broadcasters at the centre of a criminal case built on allegations that stretch back more than two decades. Because the complainants did not know each other and reported separately, the prosecution is presenting the accounts as independent of one another — a point Karmy-Jones stressed in her opening remarks. The outcome will turn on whether jurors accept those accounts beyond reasonable doubt, and the case is expected to draw sustained attention in the UK and beyond.
What the prosecution says happened
The court heard details of the first four complainants as the prosecution set out its case.
The first is a woman who alleges Brand raped her in a hotel room during a Labour party conference in Bournemouth in 1999. She was in her twenties at the time. According to the prosecution's account, she came out of the bathroom to find Brand bare-chested and moving around the room in a playful, exaggerated way — she compared it to an ostrich and to the silly walks of Basil Fawlty.
The second complainant worked at MTV when the alleged indecent assault took place in 2001. Jurors were told Brand allegedly tried to push her into a toilet. She fought back, the court heard, by struggling and pulling away. Karmy-Jones said the woman was left bewildered and shocked.
The third complainant alleges that Brand forced her into a toilet during an incident at a bar in Soho in 2004. The court heard he took hold of her arm firmly and pulled her into the lavatory, where he allegedly orally raped her.
The fourth complainant was in her twenties and working at a radio station in 2004 or 2005 when Brand allegedly sexually assaulted her. Karmy-Jones told the jury that he seized her face with both hands straight away and pushed her against a wall, where he kissed her in a sloppy and aggressive manner. The prosecutor said that during the same assault he grabbed her body aggressively, at her breasts, sides and buttocks.
Sky News reported that the court was also told Brand sent a text message saying "I'm sorry" after treating a woman "like an animal". The Guardian's live coverage carried the same detail.
How the case is being framed
The prosecution's opening statement did not rest on a single incident. Karmy-Jones presented the allegations as a pattern running across ten years, with the complainants described as unconnected to one another. That framing is central to how the Crown is asking the jury to weigh the evidence: not as isolated episodes but as accounts that, in the prosecution's telling, point in the same direction.
Brand denies all of it. His plea of not guilty means the burden sits with the prosecution to prove each charge, and the jury will hear the defence's response in due course. The court has not yet been taken through the remaining two complainants' allegations.
The New York Times also reported on the prosecution's outline of the accusations, and the BBC characterised the prosecution's opening as describing Brand as a sexual predator. CYBEV.io has not independently verified the allegations, which remain untested in court.
What to watch
The trial continues, with the prosecution expected to set out the remaining allegations and the defence to answer them. Jurors will ultimately decide each count separately.
