Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown is due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Monday over a brawl at a Mayfair nightclub three years ago, after admitting his part in an attack in which a music producer was struck on the head with a bottle.
Brown, 37, pleaded guilty in July to affray for attacking producer Abraham Diaw at the Tape nightclub in Hanover Square, Mayfair, in the early hours of 19 February 2023. His friend and vocal coach, Omololu Akinlolu, 40, also pleaded guilty to affray and is due to be sentenced alongside him at the same court.
Affray is a public order offence covering unlawful violence that would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their personal safety. It carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. That maximum is the ceiling set by law for the offence — it is not a prediction of the sentence the court will impose in this case, and no outcome has been reported yet.
What prosecutors say happened that night
According to the Crown Prosecution Service account, Brown approached Diaw from the dancefloor, moved through the crowd and struck him twice on the head with a glass bottle. Akinlolu then punched Diaw in the head, and the two men continued the assault as Diaw tried to flee through the club. Diaw was kicked while he was seated on the floor, and was later treated at St Mary’s Hospital for head and knee injuries. The attack was captured on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people.
Claire Campbell, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS London South, said: “This was a vicious and unprovoked attack by Brown and Akinlolu in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice.”
Brown had initially denied attacking Diaw. In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having an offensive weapon, a bottle.
From the nightclub to the courtroom
Brown left the United Kingdom after the brawl. He was arrested in May 2025 at a Manchester hotel after flying to the city for a concert, more than two years after the attack. He was then freed on bail of £5 million, a sum that allowed him to tour Europe and North America last summer. He was freed on bail again on Friday, ahead of today’s sentencing hearing.
The long gap between the nightclub attack and today’s hearing reflects the time it took for the case to reach the courts after Brown’s arrest, followed by the plea hearing in July at which both men admitted affray. Southwark Crown Court, on the south bank of the Thames, regularly hears high-profile criminal cases, and has hosted a string of prominent trials in recent years, including the trial of Tommy Robinson and the trial of Russell Brand.
A career shadowed by the courts
Brown rose to stardom as a teenager in 2005 and won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.”, earning his second in the same category in 2025 for “11:11 (Deluxe)”. But his career has repeatedly intersected with the criminal courts. He has been in repeated legal trouble since his felony conviction in the 2009 assault of his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, hours before the pair were due to perform at the Grammys. He has been arrested in several US states over altercations, and in 2019 he was arrested in Paris and questioned on suspicion of rape. He was released without charge in that case.
Today’s hearing will bring the Mayfair case to its conclusion, more than three and a half years after the night at Tape. The court will hear the case for sentence, and the outcome for both Brown and Akinlolu will be known once the judge has passed sentence. Until then, the only certainty is the charge they have admitted, the maximum the law allows, and the account prosecutors have already put on the record.
Other recent London court cases include the life sentence handed to Alvin Gitahi for the murder of Vivienne Baraka in Ealing.
