A high court has thrown out Andrew and Tristan Tate’s legal bid to challenge the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to disclose the names of their alleged victims in UK criminal proceedings.
The pair are facing legal proceedings in Romania, where they currently live, but will be extradited to the UK upon their conclusion to face a combined 21 charges, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.
Andrew, 39, and Tristan, 37, have strongly denied wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the pair told the High Court that the CPS had acted unlawfully by refusing to tell them the names of their alleged victims until they returned to the UK, which they claimed breached the brothers’ right to a fair trial.
But barristers for the CPS said the claim should be thrown out, telling the hearing in London that the “time-limited” decision to withhold the names was made due to fears that the Tates could identify the alleged victims online.
On Friday, Mr Justice Chamberlain dismissed the challenge, finding it was not “arguable”.
Reading a summary of his ruling, the judge said: “The decision taken in this case was coherent and rational.”
In his 12-page judgment, he said that “this is not a case where it can be said, even arguably”, that the Tates’ human rights had been breached.
He said: “The claimants will be provided with the identities of the complainants if and when they are surrendered to and prosecuted in this jurisdiction.
“In general, that is the point when an accused person is expected to answer the case against him and, therefore, the point when, as a matter of fairness, he needs to be given the information necessary to enable him to provide that answer.”
The UK charges relate to offences allegedly committed between 2012 and 2016, with Andrew Tate describing him and his brother as “very innocent men”.
At the hearing earlier this week, Sallie Bennett-Jenkins KC, for the two, said the CPS’s “wholly perverse” decision was wrongly based “on the alleged vulnerability of the complainants and predicated on the ‘notoriety’ of the claimants and the size of their social media following”.
She continued that this meant they were being treated differently from other suspects and prevented them from preparing a defence to the charges.
Ms Bennett-Jenkins also said that the CPS unreasonably refused to provide the names despite an assurance from both brothers, backed by £20,000 each, that they would not publicly identify the alleged victims, and also rejected an offer from the Tates to be interviewed under caution from Romania.
But Tom Little KC, for the CPS, said in written submissions that the decision was being “kept under review” and that the Tates would be told the names when proceedings “commence substantively” in the UK.
He continued that the decision was one that the CPS was “entitled to make”.
In court documents, Mr Little also said that there was a risk of “interference with the administration of justice” if the alleged victims were named online, but that this would be “almost impossible to police and/or successfully prosecute” when the Tates are abroad.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said the profile of the Tates was “not an irrelevant factor” and that the CPS’s description of the two as “notorious” was “not unfair” as it was “consistent with the fact that they are currently banned from all Google-owned social media platforms”.
He continued that prosecutors were “entitled to take a precautionary approach given the high public interest in ensuring that witnesses alleging serious offences, including sexual offences, are not discouraged from giving evidence”.
The judge also said it was “obviously rational” for the CPS to reject the Tates’ financial assurances, which he described as an “ad hoc security arrangement”.
