R&B singer Chris Brown has walked free from court after being handed a suspended prison sentence over a bottle attack on a music producer inside a Mayfair nightclub more than three years ago.
Brown, 37, was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for 12 months, at Southwark Crown Court on Monday 26 October. His friend and vocal coach Omololu Akinlolu, 40, was sentenced alongside him to four months, also suspended for 12 months.
Neither man will go to prison now. A suspended sentence means the prison term has been imposed by the court but does not take immediate effect — it hangs over the offender for the suspension period, and can be activated if they commit a further offence in that time. No additional conditions, fines or costs were stated in the court account of today’s hearing.
Judge Tony Baumgartner, passing sentence, described the use of the bottle in blunt terms. He said: “The repeated use of a glass bottle in that way, especially aimed at the head, was plainly dangerous.”
“It carried the risk of delivering a more serious injury than was ultimately sustained,” he added.
The court heard that Brown struck his former friend Abraham Diaw four times with what was described as a “heavy square shaped tequila bottle”, hitting him twice on the head and then on the shoulder. He then rained down what were described as “further blows” as Mr Diaw turned away.
Akinlolu was seen grabbing Mr Diaw in a “bear hug” before he fell to the ground, the court heard.
Brown, who wore a black leather jacket in court, spent much of the hearing looking at the floor.
The sentences bring to an end a case that began in the early hours of 19 February 2023 at the Tape private members’ club in Hanover Square, Mayfair. Brown pleaded guilty in July this year to affray over the attack on Mr Diaw, and Akinlolu also pleaded guilty to affray. Both men had been due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court today, after Brown was freed on bail again on Friday.
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 — a ceiling set by law, not a prediction of the sentence in any individual case. The terms imposed on Monday sit well below that maximum, reflecting the judge’s assessment that, while the use of the bottle was plainly dangerous, the injury actually sustained was less serious than the risk it carried.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service account of that night, Brown approached Mr Diaw from the dancefloor, moved through the crowd and struck him twice on the head with a glass bottle. Akinlolu then punched Mr Diaw in the head, and the two men continued the assault as Mr Diaw tried to flee through the club. Mr 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, had earlier described the incident as “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 Mr Diaw. In return for the guilty pleas, charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and possessing an offensive weapon — the bottle — were dropped.
The road to today’s hearing was a long one. Brown left the UK after the brawl and was arrested in May 2025 at a hotel in Manchester. He was later released on £5 million bail, which allowed him to continue touring in Europe and North America while the case proceeded.
The suspended sentences mean both men leave court without going into custody, but with prison terms hanging over them for the next year. For Mr Diaw, the producer at the centre of the case, the hearing closes a prosecution that has stretched from a nightclub dancefloor in February 2023 to a Southwark courtroom more than three and a half years later.
In other court news, a man was arrested after a stabbing at Brixton station at the weekend, while a Crystal Palace woman pleaded not guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday to charges linked to an alleged attack on RAF planes.
