Controversial social media influencer, Andrew Tate has ‘categorically denied’ claims of sexual violence made by four British women who are suing him for damages related to alleged physical assaults.
Last week, a fourth British woman had accused the social media influencer of choking her until she lost consciousness before raping her when she was a 20-year-old university student.
The former kickboxer was served with the legal papers by lawyers representing the four alleged victims in person at his address in Bucharest, Romania, today where he is currently on house arrest with his brother Tristan on suspicion of organised crime and human trafficking, which he denies.
It comes less than 24 hours after Romanian prosecutors also announced the misogynistic influencer, his brother, and two other female Romanian suspects, Luana Radu and Georgiana Naghel, are now being investigated for more serious human trafficking charges.
In a strongly worded statement after being served the legal papers by lawyers from McCue Jury & Partners, Tate’s team vehemently denied the accusations made by the four women and dismissed the alleged victims as ‘opportunistic’.
They claimed there was ‘no evidence’ to support the allegations or overturn the court’s previous decision when a criminal case against him was abandoned after four years when three of the four women first reported him in 2015.
A spokesperson for Tate said: ‘Andrew Tate categorically denies the veracity of the accusations brought by the lawyers of the anonymous women in the UK.
‘Considering the collective approach of the four women, and the channels chosen for communications, the opportunistic character of this endeavour becomes obvious, as justice is sought in the court, not in the press.
‘An essential fact that is frequently omitted in the mass media is that three of these women filed criminal complaints that the UK authorities decided to reject, since there was no evidence to support the allegations.
‘What new evidence could have appeared nine years later that would overturn the court’s decision?
‘Despite these alleged events taking place in 2014, no legal action has been taken to cover the alleged damages suffered and no proof of such damages has been brought forward until after Andrew became an international public figure.’
The fourth woman, now aged 30, to accuse Tate of sexual violence has joined three other British woman aged in their late 20s and early 30s as they pursue civil claims for damages against Tate.
They all say they were victims of sexual violence by Tate between 2013 and 2016, when he lived in the UK. The three women launched a civil claim raising money for the case on a crowdfunding page.
Two of them were webcam models in his internet sex business, while the other had a personal relationship with him.
The latest woman to come forward told BBC Newsnight that she had consensual sex with Tate after a night out in his hometown of Luton in 2014. But she said this became violent when he choked her, and when she awoke he was still having sex with her, which she did not consent to.
The woman said that this was her second encounter with Tate. A few months earlier they had consensual sex.
She said while they were having sex on their second encounter, Tate put his hand on her throat and ‘strangled me’ until she passed out – and that when she came round ‘it was a bit confusing at first’, and he was ‘still having sex with me’.
The woman also said she was subjected to violent threats by Tate, including one to kill her, adding: ‘He kept saying: “I own you, you belong to me”.
‘All throughout the night he was being fairly aggressive and saying horrible things.’
A spokesman for Tate insisted that all sexual acts he had been involved in had been consensual – and that he does not condone violence towards women.
The woman did not report the incident to police at the time, saying she only realised she had been sexually assaulted about six years later when she described what had happened to her friends.
The lawyer for the original three women, Matt Jury, said in April when their claim was first announced: ‘Their allegations include rape, sexual and physical assaults, including holding guns to women’s heads, strangulations including with belts, allegations of the most awful behaviour towards women.’
In a heated interview with BBC News last Thursday, Tate insisted he will be cleared of accusations of organised crime and human trafficking.
The 36-year-old British-US citizen said he is ‘absolutely and utterly sure’ he is innocent and instead said he is a ‘force for good in the world’ and a ‘positive influence’.
In the interview in his home in Romania, he said: ‘We have an open criminal investigation, I am absolutely and utterly sure I’ll be found innocent.
‘I know the case better than you, I know it intimately and you don’t, I have seen all the criminal files and the evidence against me and you haven’t, I know the truth of what happened and you don’t.
‘And I’m telling you absolutely and utterly, I’ve never hurt anybody, that the case that’s been put against me is completely and utterly fabricated and I’m never gonna be found guilty of anything.’
