Four Women to Sue Andrew Tate in UK After Losing Faith in Police

Four British women who say they suffered serious physical and sexual abuse from Andrew Tate are going to sue him in the High Court, saying they’ve been left with no alternative after prosecutors declined to charge him. 

The women who are pursuing a civil case for personal injury and psychiatric harm claim they were subjected to serious abuse by the notorious “manosphere” influencer, including multiple rapes, serious physical assaults including strangulations, and coercive and controlling behaviour, when he was living in the UK about a decade ago. 

The experiences of three of the women – two of whom were recruited by Tate to work for his webcam business, the other of whom was in a romantic relationship with him – were first revealed by VICE News earlier this year. The fourth complainant, who says she was strangled until she was unconscious when she had sex with Tate after meeting him on a night out in Luton in 2014, joined the suit earlier this month.

As reported by VICE News earlier this year, three of the women filed complaints with Hertfordshire Police over Tate’s alleged abuse in 2014 and 2015. But the investigations were hit with multiple delays, for which police eventually apologised, taking years before the file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 2019. At that point, the CPS declined to prosecute, concluding that the evidence passed on by police did not meet their legal test, and there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.

After Tate was arrested, alongside his brother Tristan, in Romania in December, and eventually charged with human trafficking, rape and other offences, the women began crowdfunding for a civil campaign against Tate, hoping that their campaign might persuade the authorities to revisit the case and proceed with charges against him.

But according to the women’s lawyers, McCue Jury & Partners, the CPS is not revisiting the case – even after, they claim, police had told them privately that they believed there was sufficient evidence for him to be charged.

That’s left the women feeling that they’ve been failed by the authorities, and with no other option than to seek justice with their civil case.

“For four years, we felt as though our case was a low priority to the Police and that we didn't matter. We were kept in the dark, and our wellbeing and status as victims came second to anything and everything else,” the women said in a joint statement issued through their lawyers.

“Unfortunately, this experience has caused us to lose all respect for the Police, and if something like this happened again, we're not sure where we would turn for help.”

Jack Beeston, an associate at McCue Jury & Partners, told VICE News that the comment from police – that they believed Tate should have been charged – was made during a meeting between his team, their clients and police in June this year. A spokesperson for Hertfordshire Police said that apologies had been made for the delays to the investigation, but did not comment on the claims that police believed Tate should be charged.

Beeston said that the CPS’s decision not to proceed with the case against Tate had accentuated the “serious deficiencies in the way that our clients, as victims of serious sexual offences, have been treated.”

“Given the abundance of evidence in relation to their complaints, one is forced to question whether there is ever sufficient evidence to prosecute sexual crimes.” Among the evidence previously reported by VICE News was a message from Tate after one alleged sexual assault that read: “I love raping you.”

Tate did not respond to VICE News via a request through his lawyer, Joseph McBride, on Monday. But in a letter to McCue Jury & Partners, he denied the allegations and threatened that, if the civil suit was launched, he would “resist any attempt to claim anonymity for all or any of the complainants.”

Beeston said that was concerning, given the harassment and intimidation by Tate’s supporters of his alleged victims in the Romanian case, two of whom have filed for a protective order to keep their identities suppressed amid intense doxxing and harassment from Tate’s fans. “In the event that Mr. Tate does anything to facilitate such harassment and intimidations, we will respond accordingly, including making further criminal complaints if necessary,” said Beeston.

Asked about the decision not to proceed with a prosecution against Tate, a CPS spokesperson said: “In this case, we carefully reviewed all the evidence provided by the police regarding each complainant and concluded it did not meet our legal test, and there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.

“We sent a letter to each complainant explaining our decision not to charge.”

The High Court action, which Beeston said would be filed “shortly,” comes shortly after Tate’s educational app – believed to be a significant source of income for Tate and his associates – was removed taken down from both Google Play and Apple’s App Store, following a campaign that alleged it was a pyramid scheme which exploits teens and ultimately channels them towards misogynistic ideology.

As reported by VICE News earlier this month, Google Play was first to ban Tate’s app, before Apple, which initially took no action, followed suit on Friday.