Andrew Tate should face criminal probe if “illegal” online content pro | UK | News

Misogynist “poster boy” Andrew Tate should be “held accountable” if his content is found to encourage violence against women, a former director of public prosecutions has said. Triple killer and rapist Kyle Clifford’s sickening crimes were found to have been fuelled by the “violent misogyny promoted” by the social media influencer , with the crossbow-wielding maniac having searched for toxic Tate’s podcast less than 24 hours before launching his deadly revenge rampage. Cambridge Crown Court heard how the 26-year-old failed soldier became “enraged” when his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, 26, ended their 18-month relationship – due to his “controlling” behaviour.

Just weeks earlier her friends had express horror when Clifford laughed as he played a Tate video about animal abuse during a social gathering – an incident that was said to be “the nail in the coffin” of the relationship for professional dog groomer Louise. After being dumped Clifford, who dropped out of the army after struggling to complete basic training, began plotting his “carefully planned and executed” murders of Louise, her sister Hannah Hunt and mother Carol Hunt on July 9 last year.

During a three-hour siege he bound and gagged Louise whilst raping her before shooting her dead with a crossbow bolt fired from close range.

She was found in the snug of the family home in Bushey, Herts, beside her mother who had been killed hours earlier by Clifford who repeatedly stabbed her with a 10-inch butchery knife.

Yesterday former Director of public prosecutions Lord Ken Macdonald suggested Tate – who is already under investigation for alleged offences of rape and human trafficking – should face a fresh criminal probe over his online content.

He said: “It’s the definitions which are always difficult when one’s dealing with content that’s lawful but harmful. But the point about someone like Andrew Tate is it seems to me that a lot of what he says online is illegal, is criminal in any event.

“I mean, encouraging violence against women and girls, encouraging sexual assault, encouraging physical abuse, is a criminal offence, and I think this is a problem of enforcement as much as creating new laws, we may need some new laws, but let’s enforce the ones we’ve got.

“If he’s encouraging this sort of behaviour, he’s breaking UK criminal law, and he ought to be held accountable for it, and I’m afraid at the moment, he hasn’t been held accountable for it.”

Tate, alongside his brother Tristan Tate, are facing criminal proceedings in both Romania and the UK on charges such as human trafficking and rape – which both men “unequivocally deny” – while a criminal investigation has recently been launched into the pair in Florida.

Former culture secretary Baroness Nicky Morgan said Clifford’s murders show harmful online content can “transform” into physical harm.

Baroness Morgan said: “I think what this case proves, and the mention of him having watched these videos, are a couple of things that those of us who campaigned on the Online Safety Act have known for some time, which is that undoubtedly, so-called legal content can absolutely be deeply, deeply harmful to others, and that the harmful content that people see online can absolutely transform and transfer to physical, offline harm.

“And so I think for the Online Safety Act, there’s always been the challenge about how will Ofcom make sure that the platforms are taking responsibility for the content that they are hosting.

“And I think in this case, interestingly, yes, there was a video, but I think a lot of the Tate content is now delivered via podcasts, and I think that’s a whole new area for the regulator to have to look at.”

Four alleged victims of Tate, who are taking legal action against him in the UK’s High Court, have called on social media companies to ban him from their platforms.

In a statement, the four women, who elected to take civil action after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to prosecute in 2019, said: “Hearing that Kyle Clifford watched videos of Andrew Tate in the lead-up to his murders of his ex-girlfriend, her mother and sister, is deeply upsetting to us, but sadly not surprising.

“This should be a wake-up call for all the social media companies who are continuing to platform Tate and his dangerous messages.

“These companies should take immediate steps to remove Andrew Tate from their platforms, rather than continue to reap enormous profits from his hateful content.

“Clifford’s case should be a warning to world leaders and all those who belittle the seriousness of allowing incitement of violence against women online fester. Our thoughts are with Hunt family.”.

On Thursday a jury took just 45 minutes yesterday to convict Clifford of raping his former girlfriend before killing her. He will be sentenced to life in prison next week.

Clifford spent two weeks brooding about his humiliation over being dumped – despite secretly cheating on Louise with at least two other women – before turning up at the Hunt family home armed with a crossbow and knife.

After tricking his way into the suburban home he killed Louise’s mother, Carol, 61 – wife of BBC horse-racing commentator John Hunt, then lay in wait for Louise, 25, who was working in her garden pod oblivious to her mother’s dying screams.

Clifford pounced when she eventually entered the home and the murdered her sister, Hannah, 28, when she arrived home from work.

The monster even used his ex-girlfriend’s phone to send a text to her father asking when he would be home, prompting the broadcaster to reply asking “Everything okay, sweetness?”

Clifford admitted the murders, false imprisonment and possessing weapons, but had denied the rape, forcing Mr Hunt and his surviving daughter Amy to suffer the ordeal of the harrowing four-day trial.

But the coward refused to leave his cell to mount a defence case against the incontrovertible DNA evidence. It took jurors just 45 minutes to find him guilty.

It was only at the culmination of the trial that the killer’s viewing habits of self-confessed misogynist Tate – who once said women should ‘bear responsibility’ for sexual assault – could be revealed.

The British-American former Big Brother contestant and kickboxing champion has been accused of sex assaults by several women and last week was allowed to fly to the US from Romania after a two-year travel ban – imposed on him and his brother, Tristan, over charges including human trafficking and sexual misconduct – was lifted. He denies all the accusations against him.

In legal submissions not put before the jury, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC argued that Clifford’s watching of Tate’s videos, which have been blamed on a rising culture of toxic masculinity among young men, should form part of the trial.

She said: “Twenty-four hours before this attack, to be searching for Andrew Tate is revealing for your mindset at that time as to how you view women and why sexual violence was an important part of this attack. He was seeking to control Louise Hunt through a final act of spite, so it is highly pertinent.”

Mr Justice Bennathan, the trial judge, noted that Tate was an alleged rapist and “almost a poster boy for misogynists”, with millions of online followers.

But the defence successfully argued that using the Tate link in the trial would be prejudicial.

Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said violence towards women was being “promoted on a mass scale by an ever-increasing tide of misogynistic influencers online whose content is influencing an entire generation of men and boys”.

She added: “The Government must take decisive action to tackle the platforms that host and profit from misogynistic and violent content.”

Cathy Larkman, of the Women’s Right Network, said: “Violent males celebrate the dehumanisation of women online and are celebrated for it. This must stop.”

Clifford will be sentenced on Tuesday.