各位好，請教一下
在論壇上看到有人貼出一則新聞，想探討裡面的say為何用現在式：
The tourists at the centre of a storm after leaving rubbish on Takapuna Beach
and abusing a local woman have spoken exclusively to the Herald.
Among their counter-claims, they say one of their children was assaulted at
the beach and denied fleeing restaurants without paying for their meals.

因為jutfrank覺得say現在式就ok了啊…所以他才覺得稍後的deny可以維持現在式就好現在式的say是先出現的，所以是現在式要不要改，而不是過去式要不要改