How Barron Trump became a remote witness in a U.K. rape case
London — President Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump, called U.K. police last year after seeing a woman being "beat up" on a video call, a court heard this week.
"I'm calling from the US, uh I just got a call from a girl, you know, she's getting beat up," Barron Trump, 19, told British emergency services in a phone call made on Jan. 18, 2025, according to a transcript sent to CBS News by the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service.
When the emergency operator asked for more details, including the victim's name and age, Trump said: "I mean these details don't matter, she's getting beat up."
When pushed for more information about how he knew the woman, the president's son said: "I don't think these details matter she's getting beat up but okay fine, also I met her on social media, I don't think that matters."
Trump told the emergency operator that the woman was being assaulted inside her home in the U.K.
"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 … So, sorry for being rude," Trump said.
During an ongoing trial at the Snaresbrook Crown Court in northeast London, jurors heard on Thursday that suspect Matvei Rumiantsev, 22, had been drinking with the alleged victim on the evening of Jan. 17, 2025, according to Britain's Press Association news agency. Her name has been withheld.
Rumiantsev told the court an altercation had been taking place when a video call from Barron Trump flashed up on the woman's phone, and he answered.
"At that point I was standing up, I stepped away from her maybe for a couple meters ... I answered the call and I immediately put the camera towards her. I don't know why I did that. Maybe I thought she would realize that her behavior was unreasonable, that she wouldn't behave like this in front of someone else," Rumiantsev testified.
Prosecutors allege that Rumiantsev strangled the woman later that evening. He was arrested the following morning and is facing two counts of rape, among other charges. He denies all the charges against him.
The court heard that Rumiantsev first became aware of the woman's friendship with Barron Trump at the end of 2024.
"I started to explain that I felt upset as well about her talking to Barron Trump," Rumiantsev 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 nature of the relationship between Trump and the victim remains unclear, but according to CBS News' partner network BBC, he said in a written statement to the court in May last year that he had been "told by the victim who I am very close with that this individual [the suspect] was giving her difficulty for a long time."
The trial is ongoing.
