Man accused of rape denies anger over call from Barron Trump, court hears

A man accused of raping a woman in London denied he was angry when she received a call from Donald Trump’s son, a court has heard.Barron Trump, the youngest son of the US president, was on a video call in January last year with the woman, who cannot be named, when he allegedly witnessed her being assaulted by a man in London and alerted police.Matvei Rumiantsev, a 22-year-old Russian citizen from east London, is accused of assault and two counts of rape, among other charges. He denies all charges.Rumiantsev, under cross-examination at Snaresbrook crown court on Friday, denied being angry about the incoming FaceTime call from Trump.“It was hard for me not to be jealous,” he said when questioned by the prosecutor, Serena Gates. When pressed as to whether he had been angry or jealous, Rumiantsev said he was “quite used to her receiving calls” and “didn’t attach much weight to that one day”.“I wasn’t angry, but I’ll be honest I was quite exhausted,” he said.Rumiantsev told the court that the woman was in a “hysterical state” when Trump called. During the exchange with the alleged victim, the defendant said he had “wanted to make her understand what she was doing was wrong”.The defendant allegedly raped the woman after spotting several missed calls on her phone from Trump during the day. He “flew into a rage” when he noticed Trump calling her in the early hours of 18 January 2025, answered the call and attacked her as Trump watched on FaceTime from across the Atlantic.The jurors were shown a video, which the prosecutor said showed the alleged victim on the floor, crying, with the defendant standing and saying to her in Russian: “Do you understand?”He told Gates it was an expression. “I was trying to make her understand what she doing was unreasonable.”He added: “Maybe that’s why I answered the call [from Barron Trump]. I probably wouldn’t behave like that in front of other people, especially Barron Trump.”The court had previously seen a transcript of the emergency call, in which Trump told the operator that he had met the alleged victim on social media.Barron Trump said in an email to police that he “didn’t expect her to pick up due to the time difference”.He added: “The phone was picked up. The individual who answered was a shirtless man with darkish hair. This view lasted maybe one second … then the view flipped to the victim.”