Andrew Tate’s legal challenge against prosecutors’ refusal to name alleged victims thrown out
A high court has rejected a legal bid by Andrew and Tristan Tate to challenge the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to name alleged victims in UK criminal cases.
The couple are facing legal proceedings in Romania, where they currently live, but will be extradited to the UK once concluded to face a total of 21 charges, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.
Andrew, 39, and Tristan, 37, have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, the pair’s lawyers told the High Court that the CPS had acted unlawfully by refusing to tell them the names of the alleged victims until they returned to the UK, which they claimed breached the brothers’ right to a fair trial.
But CPS lawyers said the claim should be dismissed, saying the “time-limited” decision to withhold names at the hearing in London was taken due to fears that Tates could identify alleged victims online.
On Friday Mr Justice Chamberlain dismissed the appeal on the grounds that it was not “arguable”.
Reading a summary of his decision, the judge said: “The decision taken in this case was consistent and rational.”
In his 12-page decision, he said that “even if it were arguable, it was not a case that could be said” that Tates’s human rights had been violated.
He said: “The plaintiffs will be provided with the identities of the complainants if they are handed over to this jurisdiction and prosecuted.
“Generally speaking, this is the point at which the defendant is expected to respond to the case against him and therefore, in fairness, is the point at which he should be given the necessary information to enable him to make that response.”
The charges in the United Kingdom relate to alleged offenses committed between 2012 and 2016; Andrew Tate described himself and his brother as “very innocent people.”
At the hearing earlier this week, Sallie Bennett-Jenkins KC, on behalf of the pair, said the CPS’s “completely perverse” decision was wrongly “based on the alleged vulnerability of the complainants and the ‘notoriety’ of the plaintiffs and the size of their following on social media”.
This, he said, meant they were treated differently from other suspects and prevented them from preparing a defense against the charges.
Ms Bennett-Jenkins also said the CPS had unreasonably refused to name names, despite both brothers giving £20,000-backed assurances that they would not publicly reveal the identities of the alleged victims, and also rejected an offer from Tates to be interviewed under caution from Romania.
But Tom Little KC, for the CPS, said in written submissions that the decision was “kept under review” and that the names would be given to the Tates once the trial had “substantially commenced” in the UK.
The decision, he continued, was one that the CPS was “competent to make”.
In court documents, Mr Little also said there was a risk of “interference with the course of justice” if the names of alleged victims were made available online, but that this would be “virtually impossible to control and/or successfully prosecute by the police” while Tates was abroad.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said the Tates’ profile was “not an irrelevant factor” and that it was “not unfair” for the CPS to describe the two as “notorious” as this was “consistent with the fact that they are now banned from all Google-owned social media platforms”.
He added that prosecutors were “entitled to take a precautionary approach, given the high public interest in ensuring that witnesses alleging serious crimes, including sexual offences, are not deterred from giving evidence”.
The judge also said it was “clearly rational” for the CPS to deny Tates financial safeguards, describing it as a “special purpose security arrangement”.
