Russell Brand Faces Court Today Amid Fresh Sexual Offence Allegations, Including Rape

COMEDIAN, ACTOR AND podcaster Russell Brand is set to appear in court in London today charged with two further sexual offences, including rape. Brand, 50, has already denied two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault, and two counts of sexual assault in relation to alleged offences between 1999 and 2005, involving four women. He was charged with one count of rape and one count of sexual assault in relation to two more women in December and is due for his first court appearance in relation to the fresh charges at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this afternoon. The two alleged offences took place in London in 2009, according to court documents. A trial is scheduled to begin at Southwark Crown Court later this year in relation to the five original charges. Brand, of Oxfordshire, is accused of raping a woman in a hotel room while she attended a Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, and grabbing a TV worker’s breasts and orally raping her after dragging her into a male toilet, the court heard in May. He is also alleged to have grabbed a radio station worker’s face, pushing her against a wall and kissing her before groping her breasts and buttocks. The other charge of the original five alleges that the actor indecently assaulted another woman after grabbing her forearm and attempting to drag her into a male toilet. He was charged following an investigation by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times in which several women made allegations against him. Brand presented on Big Brother spin-off shows Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack in the Noughties. He was married to US pop singer Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012 but is now married to Laura Gallacher, the sister of presenter Kirsty, and the pair have two children, Mabel and Peggy.