A London court handed a 22-year-old Russian man a four-year prison term on Friday after a video call to the United States prompted the president’s youngest son to alert British authorities about an ongoing assault.
The defendant, Matvei Rumiantsev, was arrested after the 20-year-old son of the U.S. president said he called a woman he knew at her London home in January last year and observed her being attacked during a live video link. The son, who was in the United States at the time, contacted emergency services in Britain to report what he had seen.
During sentencing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Judge Joel Bennathan described how the caller had witnessed the violence and how the defendant had filmed the woman while she was being assaulted. The judge said: "At one stage in the violence, there was a call to or from her friend Barron Trump. He saw you beating her up and you held the phone and filmed her, an angry act to humiliate her. Mr Trump properly and responsibly, despite being in the United States, made sure the emergency services here were called and he told them what he had seen."
Police were called to the scene after both the friend in the U.S. and the woman in London made emergency calls during the attack. Authorities later arrested Rumiantsev, who had been in an on-and-off relationship with the victim for several months.
The court heard the woman sustained multiple injuries in the incident, including bruising to her chin, arm and wrist, scratches, and the loss of a clump of hair. Those injuries were cited during the trial that led to convictions for assault and for perverting the course of justice.
Rumiantsev was found guilty in January of assault and perverting the course of justice. He was acquitted of charges of rape and intentional strangulation. For the two convictions, he received two separate two-year prison sentences, which the court ordered to run consecutively, resulting in a total custodial term of four years.
The sentence reflects the convictions recorded by the jury earlier in the year and the judge’s summary of the events as observed by the caller from abroad as well as the injuries suffered by the victim during the attack.