Russell Brand’s £3k rape charity donation – 1 year after committing the crime himself

Shamed TV presenter Russell Brand made a donation to a rape crisis charity in his hometown – one year after committing the horrific sex offence himself. On Monday, Brand, 51, was jailed for 10 years and six months at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was convicted of raping a woman at his then home in London in 2009, days after meeting her at the Hammersmith Apollo theatre where he’d been performing a comedy show. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a bar in London in 2004; sexually assaulting another woman at the Choice FM studios in London in either 2004 or 2005 and a sexual assault charge while working on a Channel 4 project in 2009.

But now it has emerged that in late 2010 – one year after he committed the 2009 rape offence – Brand’s management team had made a donation in his name to a rape crisis charity in his hometown of Grays, in Thurrock, Essex. The donation of £3,000 was given to South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre (SERICC), based in Grays, to help pay for its 25th anniversary party.

SERICC founder Sheila Coates confirmed to the BBC: “He supported four or five local charities in the area he was from, but this is really about his abuse of power, the other part of the Russell Brand personality.” The charity had no dealings with Brand directly but received the donation from his management team to help pay for a party at a venue called Orsett Hall in December 2010.

Ms Coates added: “We were engaged in fundraising activity and wrote to lots of famous people and asked for a donation and he happened to be on the list. We were responded to by his management, not him, he wasn’t in the country. We had no contact with him at all.”

Brand was born and brought up in the area, attending Grays School, now known as the Hathaway Academy. In 2013, he opened the Thurrock Mind charity shop in Grays. In 2022, he campaigned to save the Thameside Theatre over concerns it would be sold off by cash-strapped Thurrock Council.

Ms Coates added: “There is something about celebrity, money, power, control. When you get fame and money, some men abuse that position and that’s what he’s done. We’ve seen this so many times with famous men, it’s not a shock it’s disappointment and it goes on and on and on, that’s the disappointment, not really the shock because we’ve seen this with others.”

The Metropolitan Police have said several people contacted them during the trial and following the conviction and sentencing of the disgraced comedian, “to provide information or report a potential criminal allegation”. A Met spokesperson said: “Detectives are assessing this information as part of their ongoing enquiries.”

Det Supt Andy Furphy, who led the Brand investigation, said officers were “looking at exactly what we’ve got” and “whether they’re information that points to behaviour or whether they could constitute a criminal offence”. Brand is already being investigated over rape allegations from two more women. He has been interviewed under caution in connection to those allegations.

Ms Coates believed there would be “positives and negatives” after the high-profile case when it came to other victims of sexual assault coming forward. She was concerned about “victim blaming” since the outcome, adding: “I’ve heard things like ‘it was a long time ago’, ‘why didn’t she report it sooner?’.

“That’s all normal behaviour for victims for all sorts of logical psychological reasons. We still need to do some work around the myths and facts around sexual assault, all judges are supposed to do that, but I don’t think all of them do, so we’ve got to make sure that happens so that justice is fair and victims are not blamed for their own assault.”

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