‘I just got a call from a girl… she’s getting beat up’: Barron Trump’s late-night alert leads to conviction in London assault case -

A London court case that might otherwise have passed with little notice has drawn global attention because of one extraordinary detail. The key witness who alerted police to an alleged assault from 3,500 miles away was Barron Trump, the 19-year-old son of the US president.

His intervention helped secure the conviction of Matvei Rumiantsev, a 22-year-old former MMA fighter and the son of a wealthy Russian coffee entrepreneur. Rumiantsev was found guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice, after an incident involving his girlfriend in her Canary Wharf flat on January 18 last year.

Barron had been speaking to the woman on FaceTime when the attack unfolded. The court heard that he watched in horror as she was assaulted. Acting quickly, he contacted emergency services in the UK and told a City of London Police operator: “I just got a call from a girl… she’s getting beat up.”

Rumiantsev (pictured centre) denied allegations including assault, two counts of rape and intentional strangulation (Getty)

Prosecutors said Rumiantsev’s violence was driven by jealousy over the woman’s friendship with Barron. During the call, Rumiantsev allegedly grabbed the victim by the hair, pushed her to the floor, and told her, “you are not worth anything.”

Jurors heard that he also called her a “slut” and a “whore” and kicked her while she was on the floor. In a later email to police, Barron described what he had seen. “What I saw was very brief indeed but indeed prevalent,” he wrote.

He added: “The individual who picked up the phone was a shirtless man with darkish hair… The camera was then flipped to the victim getting hit while crying, stating something in Russian. The guy had hung up. This whole interaction had lasted 5 to 7 seconds.”

Rumiantsev denied being violently jealous but accepted some resentment during his testimony. “I am being portrayed as a jealous person who can lose his temper due to jealousy. I want to just make clear that her actions towards him was wrong and it was not fair,” he told the court.

Russian national Matvei Rumiantsev was accused of repeatedly punching Barron’s female friend in a flat in London while President Trump’s son was on a FaceTime call to her from the US (Getty)

He later admitted: “I was jealous to some extent.” He was acquitted of separate charges of rape and intentional strangulation linked to the same date, as well as other allegations dating back to November 2024. The charge of perverting the course of justice related to a letter he sent from prison asking the victim to withdraw her complaint.

Rumiantsev, who attended elite boarding schools in the UK, is from a prominent Russian family. His father founded One Price Coffee, a successful chain that reportedly faced a naming dispute with Starbucks.

Despite his background, the court heard that the evidence in this case turned on the brief but decisive actions of a witness watching events unfold from across the Atlantic. Rumiantsev is due to be sentenced on March 27.

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