Police search for attackers who punched gay man unconscious on London train

Homophobic attack on London train. | Photo: British Transport Police

Police are on the hunt for a group of men who violently attacked a gay man on a London train.

An unidentified man and his partner were traveling from London Liverpool Street station to Shoeburyness.

Shortly after midnight on 14 April, a group of men began making a number of homophobic comments.

The comments then escalated, with one man remarking: ‘Gays should be strung up’.

As the same-sex couple tried to get off the London train at Upminster, the attackers punched one of them in the head several times.

This led to the gay man falling to the platform and unconscious with several bruises.

‘No one should ever be targeted with abuse or violence because of who they are, or who they love,’ a spokesperson from the British Transport Police said. ‘We take all reports of hate crime seriously and will work hard to identify perpetrators and bring them before the courts.’

If you know who they are, contact BTP by sending a text to 61016 or by calling 0800 40 50 40 quoting reference 58 of 14/04/2019.

Or you can ring Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 55 111.

LGBTI hate crimes on the rise in London

A recent report revealed homophobic and transphobic hate crimes rose by 144% in England and Wales over the last five years.

In 2013-14, reports of anti-gay and lesbian hate crimes were a little over 4,000. Five years later, the reports more than doubled, soaring above 10,000.

Transphobic hate crimes, meanwhile, have more than tripled over the course of five years.

In 2013-14, around 550 known transphobic hate crimes were reported. Most recently, that number is well over 1,500 now.

West Yorkshire saw the highest spike in anti-LGBT hate crimes. They experienced a 376% increase from 2013-14 to 2017-18.

A recent, widely publicized incident happened in London, when a same-sex couple was attacked on a bus by a group of teen males. The assault left them bloodied, scared, and angry.

Jessica White, who leads hate crime reporting at the LGBT Foundation, an organization based in Manchester, said it partly had to do with increased awareness.

This is something that’s happening across the globe as more and more people are taking a more proactive role in reporting these crimes.

‘More and more, we are having people come to us who have been experiencing hate for a long period of time, prolonged abuse, often in their communities – who are finally coming forward to report.

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