Chris Brown received an eight-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Oct. 26, 2026, BBC News reported from court. He avoided immediate imprisonment, though Judge Tony Baumgartner called the suspended order “a custodial sentence.” Brown’s co-defendant, Omololu Akinlolu, received a four-month sentence, also suspended for 12 months.
Both men pleaded guilty to affray over an attack on music producer Abe Diaw in the VIP area of Tape nightclub in the early hours of Feb. 19, 2023. Brown entered his plea in July 2026. According to the BBC’s account of Baumgartner’s sentencing remarks, Brown walked toward Diaw and struck him twice with a tequila bottle, hit his shoulder and attempted another strike. The judge called the repeated use of the bottle “plainly dangerous.” He described the violence as short and intense, but not planned.
Diaw needed hospital treatment for head and knee injuries, the BBC reported. Sky News reported that Baumgartner declined to make a compensation order because unresolved questions about the extent, cause and possible long-term consequences of the knee injury left him without a secure basis for calculating one. Baumgartner found that Akinlolu did not start the violence but became an active participant. Sky News reported that the judge found Akinlolu punched Diaw after Brown used the bottle and kicked him while he was on the floor.
Brown denied separate charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having an offensive weapon; those charges were later dropped. Assault and attempted grievous bodily harm charges against Akinlolu were also dropped, .
