# The same four guilty verdicts are dated "between 2004 and 2009" by Reuters and "between 2005 and 2009" by AFP — and CBS News, plus a Press Association file carried by BBC News and Bloomberg, place one of those convictions in a year AFP's range excludes. - Canonical: https://thestochasticparrot.com/audits/brand-verdict-date-range - Structured (spans, splits, sources): https://thestochasticparrot.com/audits/brand-verdict-date-range.json - Date: 2026-11-05T18:42:30Z - Context: A coverage brief: how 16 outlets each framed the same news event. - License: CC BY 4.0 --- [ COVERAGE BRIEF // brand-verdict-date-range // 2026-11-05 ] # Brand's Four Convictions Carry Two Start Years ## The same four guilty verdicts are dated "between 2004 and 2009" by Reuters and "between 2005 and 2009" by AFP — and CBS News, plus a Press Association file carried by BBC News and Bloomberg, place one of those convictions in a year AFP's range excludes. Start with the smallest number that will not sit still: the first year of Russell Brand's four convictions. Reuters gives the jury's four guilty findings as "between 2004 and 2009." AFP gives the same four as "between 2005 and 2009." Everything around those two clauses — the courtroom, the counts, the Monday sentencing — the frozen corpus holds steady. The start year is where it splits. The verdicts themselves are not in dispute anywhere in the corpus. On Thursday 2026-11-05 a jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted Brand of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, and acquitted him of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. Sentencing is Monday. This brief walks the corpus's one hard incompatibility, then files the rest of what the records do differently — which is convention, not clash. ── VECTOR: four convictions, two start years · hard contradiction ── AFP: "Brand was convicted of four sexual offences -- one rape and three sexual assaults -- involving four women between 2005 and 2009 in different locations, including a radio station, the set of a DVD recording and Brand's home address." Reuters: "But, following a four-week trial, the jury found him guilty of rape and three sexual assaults committed between 2004 and 2009." → corpus-adjudicated by CBS News: "They found Brand guilty of grabbing a woman's breasts during a party at a bar in London's Soho neighborhood in the summer of 2004, sexually assaulting a woman at London radio station Choice FM in 2004 or 2005, and raping a woman at his home in Hampstead in 2009." → corpus-adjudicated by BBC News: "Brand was found guilty of groping an MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet." → corpus-adjudicated by Bloomberg: "The jury found him guilty of groping another MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet." These cannot both be true of the same four convictions. A set of offences that includes a 2004 assault cannot have begun in 2005. The generous reading — that AFP is counting something else, some other four — fails inside its own sentence: one rape, three sexual assaults, four women, the same inventory Reuters dates, down to the shared 2009 terminus. The dates resolve it, and the honest count matters here. CBS News, and a Press Association file carried by BBC News and Bloomberg, place the Soho bar conviction — one of the four the jury returned — in 2004. That is one newsroom's own itemized ledger, plus one wire text appearing under two mastheads. The PA file's byline appears on Bloomberg's copy: "By Tristan Kirk, Press Association Courts Editor." The BBC and Bloomberg bodies of text are near-twins on this count, and the desk does not sell a relay as a quorum. It does not need to. Four verdicts, one of them stamped 2004 by CBS and by the PA file alike — a year the range "between 2005 and 2009" has no room for. The desk records the arithmetic without ruling on anything else; how the clause got there, the corpus does not say. Worth noting what the discrepancy is not. It is one subordinate clause, "between 2005 and 2009," inside an otherwise itemized inventory, set against per-count records that each carry a 2004. One year, in one clause, in one wire file. That is the whole discrepancy, and it is now fully stated. Everything else the corpus does differently is a convention of counting or phrasing, and this brief will not inflate it. The next exhibit is filed under naming and phrasing splits, where it stays. ── NAMING: counting conventions · same events, different units ── Associated Press: "He was acquitted of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault." Fox News: "He denied the charges and was acquitted of two additional rape charges and attempted indecent assault." CNN: "At Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, a jury of eight men and four women cleared the star of two separate charges of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault, after deliberating for around eight and a half hours." The Guardian: "But Brand closed his eyes as a jury found him guilty of four offences against four women after eight hours and 30 minutes of deliberations." Newsweek: "The jury delivered their verdict on seven counts after more than eight hours of deliberations on allegations dating back more than 20 years." Washington Examiner: "The jury deliberated for two days after the trial." New York Post: "He faces up to life in prison at his sentencing Monday." Breitbart: "Comedian and Hollywood actor Russell Brand was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault Thursday morning as his weeks-long trial concluded." Al Jazeera: "A jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Thursday convicted the 51-year-old of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault." None of this is contradiction. The deliberation clock is the same event wound in different units: "around eight and a half hours," "eight hours and 30 minutes," "more than eight hours," "two days." A day that contains an afternoon is not in dispute with the afternoon. "Cleared of two separate charges" and "acquitted of two rape counts" report the same outcome; "seven counts" and the verdict-by-verdict files read the same docket at different zoom. Filed as conventions, and the desk moves on. ── READ: AFP · the 2005 floor ── anchor: "involving four women between 2005 and 2009 in different locations" objective: dates the four convictions with a floor of 2005 and locates them by venue type, not by year confidence: tentative ── READ: Reuters · the 2004 floor ── anchor: "the jury found him guilty of rape and three sexual assaults committed between 2004 and 2009" objective: dates the same four convictions with a floor of 2004, with the acquittals in the next sentence confidence: tentative ── READ: CBS News · incidents with years attached ── anchor: "grabbing a woman's breasts during a party at a bar in London's Soho neighborhood in the summer of 2004" objective: itemizes each guilty verdict with its own year and venue, which is the structure that adjudicates the vector above confidence: strong ── READ: BBC News · verdict-by-verdict ledger ── anchor: "Brand was found guilty of groping an MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet." objective: gives each count its year and its outcome in sequence, guilty and not-guilty side by side confidence: strong ── READ: Bloomberg · the PA file, dated per count ── anchor: "groping another MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet." objective: runs the same count-by-count structure as the BBC ledger; the two bodies of text are near-twins on the 2004 conviction confidence: strong ── READ: Associated Press · acquittals after the first subhead ── anchor: "He was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault." objective: pairs conviction and acquittal in consecutive sentences after the first subhead, before the background sections begin confidence: tentative ── READ: Fox News · acquittal inside the lede sentence ── anchor: "He denied the charges and was acquitted of two additional rape charges and attempted indecent assault." objective: folds denial and acquittal into the opening paragraph; wife's testimony takes the middle of the file confidence: tentative ── READ: CNN · the jury as a described body ── anchor: "a jury of eight men and four women cleared the star of two separate charges of rape" objective: seats the acquittals beside the jury's composition and the deliberation clock in one sentence confidence: tentative ── READ: The Guardian · minutes, not hours ── anchor: "eight hours and 30 minutes of deliberations" objective: gives the deliberation to the minute and counts the offences "against four women," the corpus's most granular clock and count confidence: tentative ── READ: Newsweek · the 20-year reach ── anchor: "on allegations dating back more than 20 years" objective: frames the seven counts and the deliberation against the full span of the allegations, the widest denominator in the corpus confidence: tentative ── READ: Washington Examiner · days as the unit ── anchor: "The jury deliberated for two days after the trial." objective: gives the deliberation in days only; the file is short and carries no per-count years confidence: tentative ── READ: New York Post · the maximum sentence up front ── anchor: "He faces up to life in prison at his sentencing Monday." objective: the file's spine is custody and the maximum term; the counts are summarized, not dated confidence: tentative ── READ: Breitbart · conviction, career arc ── anchor: "as his weeks-long trial concluded" objective: conviction first, then a career chronology; no per-count years on the verdicts themselves confidence: tentative ── READ: Al Jazeera · the counts and the acquittals in one paragraph ── anchor: "convicted the 51-year-old of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault." objective: states conviction and acquittal counts in the second paragraph of the file confidence: tentative The filings above describe what each body of text puts where. None of them is a claim about intent, and the desk makes none. The brief's one finding sits in the VECTOR block and nowhere else: two date ranges, one calendar, and a 2004 conviction placed by CBS News and by the PA file behind it. Claim: the start year of the four convictions · status: corpus_adjudicated · confidence: high — a convicted offence is placed in 2004 by CBS News and by a Press Association file carried by BBC News and Bloomberg, and the AFP range excludes 2004. Quotation match: high on the 28 spans that located; all 28 are verbatim from the frozen corpus, and none failed to locate. That certifies the words appear at their sources; it says nothing about either wire's sourcing beyond them. Whether either range is corrected is a question for a later fetch. ## Sources - AFP — "Russell Brand guilty of rape, three sexual assaults: UK court": https://www.afp.com/en/russell-brand-guilty-rape-three-sexual-assaults-uk-court - Reuters — "Comedian Russell Brand found guilty by UK court of rape and sexual assaults": https://www.reuters.com/world/comedian-russell-brand-found-guilty-rape-2026-11-05/ - CBS News — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault at trial in London": https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russell-brand-found-guilty-rape-sexual-assault-verdict/ - BBC News — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault": https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckyvrze96y70o - Bloomberg — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assaults": https://www.bloomberg.com/en/news/thp/2026-11-05/russell-brand-found-guilty-of-rape-and-sexual-assaults - Associated Press — "Russell Brand is convicted of rape, and judge says he’ll get a prison term": https://apnews.com/article/russell-brand-rape-sexual-assault-trial-f840ec56b2c8dd88941460d81de81fc7 - Fox News — "Russell Brand found guilty of one count of rape, three counts of sexual assault": https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/russell-brand-found-guilty-one-count-rape-three-counts-sexual-assault - CNN — "Actor and comedian Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault": https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/05/uk/russell-brand-trial-verdict-uk-intl - The Guardian — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault": https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/nov/05/russell-brand-found-guilty-rape-sexual-assault - Newsweek — "Russell Brand Found Guilty of Rape": https://www.newsweek.com/russell-brand-found-guilty-rape-sexual-assault-12670457 - Washington Examiner — "UK court convicts Russell Brand of rape and sexual assault": https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/4793825/uk-court-convict-russell-brand-rape-sexual-assault/ - New York Post — "Russell Brand convicted of rape in UK court — as he's hauled away in handcuffs and faces life in prison": https://nypost.com/2026/11/05/world-news/russell-brand-found-guilty-of-one-count-of-rape-and-three-counts-of-sexual-assault-by-london-jury/ - Breitbart — "Russell Brand Found Guilty of Rape and Sexual Assault": https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/11/05/russell-brand-found-guilty-of-rape-and-sexual-assault/ - Al Jazeera — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault by UK court": https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/5/russell-brand-found-guilty-of-rape-and-sexual-assault-by-uk-court - Sky News — "Russell Brand latest: Comedian guilty of rape and sexual assault - as police interview released": https://news.sky.com/story/russell-brand-guilty-rape-sexual-assault-trial-live-latest-13592674 - NBC News — "Russell Brand found guilty of rape and sexual assault": https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/russell-brand-guilty-rape-sexual-assault-rcna606967