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Hours after British actor Russell Brand was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison for rape and sexual assault, his former partner Jemima Goldsmith publicly spoke out about the domestic abuse she allegedly suffered during their relationship.

Brand was convicted by a jury last week for one rape and three sexual assaults committed against four women between 2004 and 2009. Brand was cleared of two other alleged rapes and one count of attempted indecent assault. He was sentenced on Monday.

The entertainer’s legal team can file for permission to appeal against the sentence or the conviction within 28 days. He will need to serve at least two-thirds of his sentence to be eligible for parole.

In a public statement on X, Goldsmith claimed she had her own “personal experience of his violence, coercive control and abuse”, including a violent incident in 2014 which led her to call the police to have Brand removed from her house.

She claimed she had refrained from filing charges against the comedian at the time, fearing the press attention it would bring to her and its negative impact on her children.

“Whilst my pain in relation to this pales in comparison to what the women [who] have testified in court have suffered, this was a difficult period in my life which has had a lasting impact,” Goldsmith continued.

“Over several years,” the producer said, “I assisted the journalists who finally exposed him … I also undertook to testify in court to his abusiveness, if the newspaper that published the victims’ accounts were ever to be sued.”

Goldsmith made clear that she is and has always been “strongly and unequivocally on the side of all of Brand’s victims”.

“I am in awe of the courageous women who came forward at Brand’s trial, told their stories, testified and ensured justice was done,” she said.

She added that she had not been in contact with Brand since 2014. “I am glad and relieved that Russell Brand has finally faced justice,” Goldsmith said.

The Sunday Times chief news correspondent, Rosamund Urwin, who was part of a 2023 media probe into Brand said that Goldsmith had helped her “a lot” during the investigation, according to a BBC report.

“I have seen the abuse she’s been getting online and I did try to tell people that part of the story was much more complicated than they realise,” Urwin told the BBC.

“I wish people would remember women that come forward are brave people and that is what she has done tonight – she has spoken out with immense bravery about how Russell Brand treated her,” she added.