A UK judge praised Barron Trump for his lifesaving actions after he witnessed a friend being assaulted on a video call and alerted British police.
LONDON: A UK judge has praised Barron Trump for his “lifesaving” actions after he remotely witnessed a violent assault on a friend during a video call.
Judge Joel Bennathan made the remarks while jailing 22-year-old Russian national Matvei Rumiantsev for four years at Snaresbrook Crown Court.
The court heard that Rumiantsev attacked the woman in January 2025 after becoming jealous of her friendship with the younger Trump.
The victim, who cannot be identified, feared she would be killed during the assault.
She managed to call the UK emergency number 999 herself, but Rumiantsev snatched the phone away. He then dragged her back by her hair when she briefly escaped to seek help from a neighbour.
“At one stage in the violence there was a call to or from her friend Barron Trump,” Judge Bennathan said. The judge noted that the 20-year-old son of US President Donald Trump saw the beating and that Rumiantsev held the phone to film the victim in “an angry act to humiliate her”.
“Mr Trump properly and responsibly, despite being in the United States, made sure the emergency services here were called, and he told them what he had seen,” Bennathan added. Barron Trump alerted British police from the United States on January 18, 2025, after accidentally seeing the violence.
In a transcript shown to court, Trump told a London police operator, “I just got a call from a girl” who is “getting beat up”. He added, “She’s getting really badly beat up and the call was about 8 minutes ago, I don’t know what could have happened by now.”
Trump later emailed investigators, saying he had not expected the woman to answer his call due to the time difference. “To my dismay” it was answered by “a shirtless man,” he wrote. “The camera was then flipped to the victim getting hit while crying, stating something in Russian. The guy had hung up.”
During the emergency call, Trump initially would not tell the operator how he knew the woman. After being admonished for being “rude,” he eventually explained he “met her on social media” and that they were “very close”.
Judge Bennathan told Rumiantsev, “You are a man given to jealousy and you have a temper,” adding that he remained “totally unrepentant”. Rumiantsev was found guilty in January 2025 of assault causing actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
He was acquitted of two separate charges of rape and another assault charge from November 2024. The case attracted significant media attention due to Barron Trump’s surprise involvement.
The Sun Malaysia
