Russell Brand is due at Southwark crown court for the plea hearing on Friday.
Russell Brand is set to enter pleas in court to charges of rape and sexual assault against four women including an allegation of an attack at the Labour Party conference.
The 49-year-old comedian-turned-online activist is due to appear in front of Judge Tony Baumgartner at Southwark crown court for the plea hearing.
Brand faces two counts of rape, two charges of sexual assault, and an allegation of indecent assault, in charges which were alleged to have happened between 1999 and 2005.
It is alleged he raped a woman at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth in 1999 after they met at an event he was performing at, where he accompanied her to her hotel room and allegedly attacked her on the bed.
Brand is accused of attempting to drag a TV worker into a toilet in 2001 by “grabbing her forcefully by the forearm”.
When he was a presenter on reality TV show Big Brother, he is alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman by “sloppily” kissing her and groping her breasts.
Since the charges on his name became public, he took to social media to deny claims of rape and sexual abuse & invited to the opportunity of a criminal trial as a chance to clear his name.
He said: “I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes”.
Ahead of his first court hearing, he posted a YouTube video saying: “If you were a member of the Labour Party, that’s the governing party in my country the United Kingdom, you would want an inquiry into rape gangs so that you could be entirely exonerated. It’s the same with me.
“I want a trial because I know that I’m innocent. I know I’m a broken sinner and a wretched hopeless individual, but I know I’m innocent. So an examination – a thorough and intrepid examination – which establishes that innocence in the eyes of everybody, I welcome it. What a relief it will be.”
Detectives began investigating Brand in September 2023 after receiving a number of allegations; additionally investigations by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Times led to a Metropolitan Police investigation.
