British actor Russell Brand found guilty of rape and other sexual crimes

The British actor Russell Brand was found guilty in a London court on Thursday of a crime of rape and three other charges of sexual assault throughout his career.

A popular jury found the comedian, who was Katy Perry's husband from 2010 to 2012, guilty of raping a 21-year-old fan after one of his shows in the British capital in 2009, as well as having sexually assaulted or groped other women in previous years. Instead, he was acquitted of other crimes of which he was accused.

Following the verdict, Judge Joel Bennathan, at Southwark Crown Court (south London), explained that the consequence of the jury's verdict will inevitably result in "a significant prison sentence" before ordering the preventive detention of the 51-year-old actor in prison.

The sentence will be known next Monday.

In addition to the rape charge, Brand was also found guilty of groping, but not orally raping, an MTV worker during a party at a bar in Soho in 2004, sexually assaulting a Capital Radio employee in 2005, as well as sexually assaulting a Channel 4 worker during a "forced massage" in 2009.

Instead, he was found not guilty of raping a woman he met during a Labor Party conference in 1999, as well as of attempting to "drag" another MTV employee into a bathroom to sexually assault her in 2001.

In parallel with the trial, the London Metropolitan Police (Met Police) confirmed that Brand is being investigated for additional accusations of rape coming from two women and that the investigations remain "ongoing."

In preliminary hearings it was revealed that these allegations come from a woman who dated Brand when the actor was 30 years old and she was a 16-year-old student.