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Fifty-nine counts between the two brothers. Seven complainants. Seven years of alleged conduct. What the Crown Prosecution Service has actually charged — and what the numbers do and do not mean.

The number that has dominated the coverage since 18 July is fifty-nine. Forty-two counts against Andrew Tate, seventeen against Tristan, announced by the Crown Prosecution Service on the day the brothers were arrested in Miami. The number is being used as a kind of shorthand for enormity, which is one of the things large charge sheets are for. It is also being reported almost entirely without content. What follows is what is actually on the sheet, count by category, and what each category means under the law of England and Wales.

The complainants and the timeframe

Before the counts, two facts that hold the entire structure up. The CPS says the case now involves seven alleged victims. All are women. The alleged conduct spans a seven-year period from July 2010 to August 2017, meaning the newest allegation is now eight years old and the oldest is more than fifteen. Bedfordshire Police, which has run the investigation from the English side since its early stages, delivered a further evidential file to the CPS earlier this year; the July announcement was the CPS's charging decision on that new material combined with charges already authorised in 2024.

Andrew and Tristan Tate deny every allegation. Neither has been convicted of any offence in any country.

Andrew Tate: 42 counts

The forty-two counts against Andrew Tate break down, on the CPS's own accounting, into five categories.

Rape — 10 counts. Under section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, rape is defined as intentional penetration of the vagina, anus or mouth without consent, where the defendant does not reasonably believe the complainant consented. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment. Three of the ten counts were authorised in the earlier 2024 charging decision; the July 2026 announcement added seven further counts of rape.

Human trafficking for sexual exploitation — 3 counts. These are charges of arranging or facilitating trafficking under section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, rather than physical transport across a border. Under English law, "trafficking" for sexual exploitation can occur entirely within one country and turns on the arrangement of a person's travel with a view to their exploitation. Maximum sentence: life imprisonment.

Assault occasioning actual bodily harm — 6 counts. A section 47 offence under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, covering assaults that cause more than trivial injury but fall short of grievous bodily harm. Maximum sentence: five years. Three of these counts were authorised previously; three were added in July.

Indecent images of a child — a set of charges within a group of 19. These fall under the Protection of Children Act 1978, which criminalises the making, possession, or distribution of indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of persons under 18. The CPS has not, at the time of writing, publicly detailed the specific sub-classification of the images in question, nor whether the charges are for possession, making, or distribution — categories that carry different maximum sentences ranging up to ten years.

Extreme pornography — the remainder of the 19-count group. Charges under section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which criminalises possession of pornographic images depicting specified categories of extreme content. Maximum sentence: three years.

The nineteen counts covering indecent images and extreme pornography are all new — none appeared in the 2024 charging decision. They represent the single largest tranche of new charges and are the source of most of the arithmetic that produced the "42" headline.

Tristan Tate: 17 counts

The counts against Tristan Tate are fewer, narrower in category, and — importantly — do not include the images-related offences that inflate his brother's total.

Rape — 3 counts. Two authorised in 2026, one previously.

Sexual assault — 1 count. Under section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, sexual assault covers intentional sexual touching without consent, and carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

Human trafficking for sexual exploitation — 6 counts. Again under section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act; three authorised in July on top of three previously.

Actual bodily harm and related counts — the balance of seventeen. These were largely authorised in the 2024 tranche.

What the numbers mean, and what they do not

Two features of English charging practice explain most of the arithmetic, and neither is discussed in the coverage.

The first is that a single alleged incident can generate several counts. A single occasion involving one complainant may produce a count of rape, a count of sexual assault, and a count of actual bodily harm if the prosecution's case is that all three occurred. This is standard practice and it is not, in itself, evidence of a larger pattern of alleged offending — it is a reflection of how the offences are legally defined.

The second is that possession-of-image offences are frequently charged in bulk. A cache of material can produce a separate count for each distinct image or, more commonly, for each defined category under the sentencing guidelines. Nineteen counts in this category can, in principle, arise from a single seized device. It is not yet public how many devices, or how many images, sit behind the images charges against Andrew Tate.

Neither point makes the charges less serious. Both make the raw count of "42" less informative than it first appears. A jury, if the case ever reaches one, will be asked to consider the counts individually — and acquittal on some while convicting on others is the ordinary outcome of a large multi-count indictment, not an unusual one.

What has been charged before, and what is new

Some of this material is not new to the file. The 2024 charging decision authorised charges of rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking for sexual exploitation against both brothers, alongside further offences under the Modern Slavery Act. The 18 July 2026 announcement added the nineteen images-and-extreme-pornography counts against Andrew, seven further counts of rape against Andrew, two counts of rape and one of sexual assault against Tristan, three trafficking counts against each brother, and three further actual-bodily-harm counts against Andrew.

The evidential source, per the CPS, was a further file from Bedfordshire Police. What the CPS has not explained publicly is why material that produced these charges in the summer of 2026 was not brought in the eighteen months between the brothers' arrival in the United States in February 2025 and their arrest in Miami last month. That is a separate question, and it belongs to a separate piece.

What happens next to the charge sheet

The charges themselves do nothing until either the brothers appear before an English court, which requires extradition, or the CPS discontinues them, which is not indicated. Britain has until 16 September 2026 to submit its full extradition request to the United States. If extradition succeeds, the brothers would first appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court, with any trial almost certainly listed at Southwark Crown Court, and — given the volume of counts — split into more than one trial with severance applications from the defence.

Until then, the fifty-nine counts remain what they have been since the day they were authorised: allegations, unproven, denied.

Andrew and Tristan Tate deny all charges and allegations against them. No court has convicted either brother of any offence. This article summarises publicly announced charging decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service and does not assert the truth of any allegation.