A judge has told jurors to treat evidence from Donald Trump’s youngest son with caution in a trial over an alleged attack on his friend.
Barron Trump, 19, contacted UK police from the US after allegedly seeing his friend being “beat up” during a video call last year.
On Monday, a judge told Snaresbrook Crown Court that his account could be “mistaken or biased” by his friendship with the woman and warned jurors not to rely on it as the main basis for a conviction.
Matvei Rumiantsev, 22, is accused of assault, actual bodily harm, two counts of rape, intentional strangulation and perverting the course of justice by pressuring the woman to withdraw her complaints.
He denies all of the charges.
Giving legal directions on Monday, Mr Justice Bennathan KC said Trump had not given evidence under oath or been cross-examined.
“If he had done so, no doubt he could have been asked about things such as whether he ever got a good view of what happened, whether he actually saw [the complainant] being assaulted, or jumped to this conclusion on the basis of her screams,” the judge said.
He added: “He might also have been asked whether his perception was biased because he was close friends with [the complainant].”
The judge said hearsay evidence could be considered, but jurors should be “careful” as it had not been given under oath and should “not convict the defendant mainly in reliance on it.”
Trump contacted the police on 18 January last year, shortly after he had a video call with the alleged victim.
“I’m calling from the US, uh I just got a call from a girl, you know, she’s getting beat up,” he said, according to a transcript of the call released by the Crown Prosecution Service.
In an email sent to police in May, Trump said that what he saw had been “very brief indeed but indeed prevalent,” adding: “As per evidence, I do not have any.”
The court was told police received no response to follow-up emails.
Defending Rumiantsev, Sasha Wass KC described Trump as a “wholly unreliable witness” who was “irrationally jealous” of her client. She said the woman used her friendship with Trump, who she met on social media, as a “ruse” to provoke jealousy in what she described as a “relationship full of dramas”.
Prosecutor Serena Gates told the court to note Trump’s “urgent” and “worried” tone in the call to police.
Prosecutors allege Rumiantsev strangled the woman on the evening of 17 January 2025 after the pair had been drinking together. She later called the police, and Rumiantsev was arrested on the morning of 18 January and taken into custody.
Rumiantsev, a Russian national who was living in east London at the time, told the court the pair had consensual sex, and that he had held her arms in self-defence to prevent her from hitting him.
He said he was not sure why he answered the call from Trump, but that maybe he hoped “that she wouldn’t behave like this in front of someone else”.
Earlier, Rumiantsev told the court that he had felt “upset” about her talking to Trump.
But he said: “I was in no way controlling but I was trying to make her know that if she feels unwell seeing messages, I had with girls 10 years ago, she could maybe understand how I felt when she was sat there this moment texting someone else.”
The trial continues.
