Debunking the Tate’s Fictional Legal Narratives

The arrest of Andrew and Tristan Tate at a boxing event in Miami set in motion the machinery to bring the controversial online influencers to face trial in a UK court. 

An extradition requests cannot be refused on the grounds of general political disagreements or disapproval of some UK institutions. It is an iron-clad agreement, and if the legal conditions are met, suspects are delivered to the UK.

There have been dozens of extraditions enacted since signing the 2006 agreement, and with the acts the brothers are accused of being just as illegal in the US as in the UK, no clearly apparent reason why this would not be granted like any other. 

Analysis of the modern treaty era records approximately 58 surrenders from the US to the UK, with no established pattern of American courts blocking properly constituted UK requests. Judicial refusals by US courts are vanishingly rare.

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However, across multiple statements and podcast appearances, their representative, lawyer Joe McBride confidently predicted that grounds would be found for refusal. 

With his claims reaching a wide online audience, and his statements being widely quoted across the press. it is vital to set the record straight. 

Elsewhere he has talked of supposed UK plea deals where admitting guilt would see the brothers let off with 3 to 5 year sentences - another legal fiction we shall explain in detail.

This all comes amid widely quoted statements by McBride, falsely the Tates have been batting away failed allegations from authorities one after the other, with charges being continually disproven and dropped. However, no charges in these re-opened and expanded cases have been, or are being dropped. And before the announcement of further UK charges, the Tates were due to face trial in the UK on multiple serious criminal counts, with Romania agreeing to hand them over following the conclusion of the delayed proceedings.

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Regarding the Romanian case, while the case had seen delays, as prosecutors reworked files to satisfy objections from Tate’s defence, once again, no charges had been dropped.

McBride's has claim that the Tates were in the process of proving allegations false through legal proceedings they themselves had filed, including civil claims for defamation. McBride is here referring to the Tate brothers' habit of accusing their accusers by filing their own claims against them. These cases rarely get far before being dismissed as groundless, and either way have no bearing on the criminal cases against them.

Most fundamentally: the proper venue for disproving allegations or establishing innocence is at trial in a court of law.

The delays in the Romania case, and particularly the bail conditions allowing the Tates to portray a 'business as usual' image and, more concerningly, enabling a last-minute one-way ticket to escape the reach of UK and Romanian justice by seeking protection in Russia - have led to some previously urging the UK government to extradite the brothers from the UAE, another country we have an extradition treaty with. The fact that Romania has an agreement to hand over the Tates following the conclusion of their legal proceedings does not interfere with anyone else handing them over to the UK. 

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Yet this is another of the claims from the Tate's spokesman: the UK extradition cannot happen, as legal proceedings in Romania mean that the UK cannot have Tate. Once again: a complete legal fiction, with no precedent or legal foundation.

Next is the claim from Joe McBride is that arrest was not valid and did not follow protocol. He speaks of a low level functionary making unauthorised, politically motivated decision. 

This is categorically false. Court filings show that everything to date has had full scrutiny and been carried out on the basis of proper authorisation.

Next we come to the extraordinary plea bargain claim, that UK prosecutors seek only the reputational harm that would come from Tate brothers rape convictions, and would leverage weak evidence, via the threat of a 100-year jail term, and an American-style plea bargaining system to achieve those goals.

The first problem with this is that the UK does not have any American-style plea bargaining system.

McBride speaks of 100 year sentences - also an American import not existing the UK - reduced to 3-5 years. Totally impossible.

The UK has a well known system whereby a guilty plea at the earliest opppurtunity reduces a sentence by 1/3. And that's about it. No bargaining, no backroom deals - and no ulterior motives, no charges that don't stand a realistic chance of being proved. The CPS brings cases because they think they can win.

As we have mentioned previously, in certain borderline cases, there is a margin for 'pleading to the lesser offence'.

This can occurs where there is considerable crossover between two offences, and the CPS consider that a defendant who, for example, pleads guilty to a serious violence charge such as grievious bodily harm with intent, in place of a trial for attempted murder, will still end up with a sentence fully reflecting the gravity of their actions.

Their is no option for the justice system to make charges disappear or drastically reduce their seriousness: sentencing guideline are rigourously applied, stipulating significant sentences for the sort of serious crimes the Tates are accused of.

Finally, McBride has raised the possiblity of political objections on the theme ‘there is no justice in the UK’. The claim is that there is a simple opt-out available, with no serious negative consequences, if the US decides at a high level they object to the UK justice system or institutions, without finding specific, serious flaws in the case or procedure.

At every step in the extradition process, cases are scrutinised for legality. Until it is proven that UK justice system has done anything wrong, it is hard to say that the extradition shouldn't go ahead.

Granting an extradition isn’t a comment on innocence or guilt, merely that the case has met the threshold where it deserves a hearing, where a jury of ordinary members of the public will judge the charges on their merits.

The notion that an extradition treaty could be bent solely to suit the Tates is fictional. Refusing the tates on political grounds would entail desgnating the UK as a legally unsafe country. The consequences, and repercussions, would be massive, and the partnership that the US relies on to get its own citizen wanted for trial back to the States from America would be in question.

In contrast to these false narratives, what we can actually expect is, a wait of around two years if the Tates make use of every legal option to drag out proceedings as long as possible, or, if they decide to let the process go ahead as normal trial, a wait of around two months. Either way, at the end of it, the Tates are coming home to face a UK trial. And UK Courts Live will be there to bring you proceedings.