Russell Brand has been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison, 9 of which relate to an evening in which a survivor voluntarily came to his house in 2009, voluntarily did various things in bed with him, and says that some other things happened that she did not consent to.
What if the story had instead been “a woman came over to Russell Brand’s house in 2009 and did not become a survivor because, following an argument, he killed her”? ChatGPT says that Brand might have been sentenced to approximately 4 years for manslaughter and would then have been eligible for release after 2 years. The prevailing law in 2009 was that “provocation” could turn murder into manslaughter. ChatGPT cited the example of Stephen Paul Faulkner from 2001: “Wife repeatedly taunted him about impotence, unemployment, illiteracy and other men. During an argument he stabbed her and their son [who intervened] to death.” He was sentenced to 3.5 years for manslaughter, a sentence that was upheld on appeal in 2003. (This wasn’t a sudden crime of passion. The appeal notes that “F [defendant] took the car, went to a local store and bought a kitchen knife with a six inch blade. He returned home where they continued to argue, F followed V upstairs into the bedroom”.) ChatGPT also cited Susan Phillipson. In 2007 she took a more direct and honest approach than MIT Prof. Dr. Kristin Knouse, M.D., Ph.D.: “During an argument over her partner leaving her for another woman, fatally stabbed him with a kitchen knife.” She was sentenced to 3.2 years.
ChatGPT also found R v. Taylor (I think that “R” means “Regina” or the Queen):
A man and his common-law wife had been drinking. After a minor disagreement about a door being left open, she mocked him about her relationship with another man. He took a knife from a kitchen drawer and fatally stabbed her once in the stomach. He was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. His original sentence of seven years was reduced by the Court of Appeal to five years.
(ChatGPT couldn’t find any other case in the history of the UK that was similar to the Russell Brand one, i.e., one in which the jury was hearing about events that occurred 17 years earlier between two people and for which there was no physical evidence to corroborate anyone’s story.)
Comparison to some other sex-related crimes, e.g., “controlling a child prostitute” resulting in Englishman Tanveer Ahmed being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, while Welshman Mohammed Ali Sultan got 2.5 years for “allowing his flat to be used as a brother by allowing a man to have sex with a girl who was being controlled as a prostitute”:
Better than what british courts would sentence for writing the word “gun” in a blog comment. Fortunately, US escaped king George III for the moment. Enjoy his play.