Gay man 'punched in face and bitten in homophobic attack'
Lewis North, 32, says he is nervous going back out into town following the attack in Nottingham.
A man who was bitten and spat on as he was viciously attacked on his way home from a gay pub says he’s scared to go back into town but is determined to regain his confidence.
Lewis North, 32, was walking home from the New Foresters, in Nottingham, and was passing through the Victoria Centre when he was confronted by a lone man at around 2.30am on Sunday. “I could see somebody in the far distance ahead of me and this person was trying to hide, but I didn’t really know what they were doing,” he tells Yahoo News.
After passing some pillars inside the shopping centre, he says a man jumped out at him and “tried to scare” him. “He's telling me that he's going to stab me. He's going to kill me. He's going to beat me up for being gay. He's telling me that I shouldn't be allowed out, that I shouldn’t be allowed to walk the street,” says North.
After responding “f**k off”, North, originally from North Lincolnshire, says he walked outside the building onto a forecourt when the man started punching him. He added: “I go straight to the floor, and he just starts beating the living s**t out of me, and I’m thinking, what the hell is going on here?”
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North says he shouted for help, but no one was around to intervene, but that he then had an opportunity to hit back and managed to restrain the attacker to the ground. During the struggle, he says the man bit one of his ears and spat on him.
At some point during the fight, North says he managed to get hold of his attackers watch and threw it into the road in the hope it would hit a car and get someone’s attention – to no avail. With no sign of the attacker backing down, North says he felt “very overwhelmed” and collapsed to the floor.
He says the hard fall made his Apple watch notify emergency services, as well as his close friends and family that he’d taken a fall and triggered a 999 call on his phone. The man continued punching him, calling him a “f****t” and “b***y boy”, and asking if he thinks it’s acceptable to be gay, recalls North, who is director of his own architecture, interior and landscape design business.
He adds: “It gets to the point where I actually can't take anything more so that's when they then just give up and I suppose that's where I sustain the majority of my injuries on my face.”
North, who was left with cuts to the head and a swollen face, says he then remembers seeing blue lights in the distance and his attacker getting off him. After walking around the corner and telling police what happened and saying, “that man needs arresting”, he says an officer replied: “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job, I know what I’m doing.”
“I was like, ‘sorry, what?’ I’m mauled like a dog here and I want safety from you, and you’re pushing me away," North recalls. He says then walked back to the New Foresters and spoke to his friends and security by the entrance, when police caught up with him and said they’d take a witness statement the following morning.
'I'm determined to get myself back out there'
North says he went out to the Lord Roberts on Tuesday, a gay-friendly pub in the city, noting that the mood had changed among him and his friends.
“I was really scared. I had to change the way I would normally get there and I was scared for one of my friends that I didn't hear back from,” he adds. “Perceptions changed a little bit and the group dynamics changed. Firstly they’re all making sure I’m okay, but secondly, they’re talking about safety in numbers, travelling together and sharing locations on our phones.
“It's quite scary to think that we have to do this in 2024. We’ve just started the year and we’re already seeing hate crime against our community.”
North says he has been feeling emotionally fragile since the attack and has been staying over at a friends’ so he isn’t home alone at night. However, he says he’s determined not to let the ordeal stop him enjoying nights out in the city, even if it does feel “a little bit scary” still.
“I need to put myself in there. If I don’t do it then it's only going to get worse,” he adds. “I’m going to get back onto the horse and start riding again. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so I am much more positive coming out of this.”
Confirming that officers are treating the incident as a hate crime, Nottinghamshire Police’s Chief Inspector James Walker told Yahoo News UK: “We take all allegations of violence and hate crime very seriously and officers responded quickly to an assault in Milton Street on January 7 at around 2.35am.
“The victim, aged 32, was supported by officers at the scene after he was punched in the face. We arrested a 22-year-old man for ABH [actual bodily harm]. Currently, we are treating this as a hate crime. Investigations are ongoing and we continue to support the victim.”
Homophobic attacks have risen significantly over past decade
Homophobic attacks have been on the rise in recent years. According to Home Office figures, hate crimes related to sexual orientation fell by 6% to 24,102 offences in the year ending March 2023, while transgender hate crimes increased by 11%, to 4,732 offences.
However the small decrease in the former category is actually a buck in the trend, with the chart below, provided by Statista, showing how crimes carried out against people because of their sexual orientation have been rising significantly since 2014.
Commenting on the overall increase late last year, Robbie de Santos, director of external affairs at Stonewall, said: “Political leaders haven't acted seriously or quickly enough. Instead many of them are filling the public domain with toxic language that dehumanises LGBTQ+ people and legitimises violence. The UK Government failed to implement any sort of strategy that responds to their own statistics and reports.
"We need a strong and committed leadership that moves away from divisive distractions and instead addresses the real problems of people in this country. We shouldn't be treated like second-class citizens."
