Teen punched in ‘homophobic’ attack in McDonald’s
Police are appealing for witness after a 19-year old man was assaulted in a suspected homophobic attack in a McDonald’s in Birmingham.
The teenaged was with his boyfriend in the fast food branch in Chester Road on the evening of October 8 when he was was approached by a man and punched in the face.
His attacker, who was restrained by another person, then left the restaurant.
The victim was not seriously injured.
Birmingham Police are appealing for witnesses. (Birmingham Police/Facebook)
Birmingham Police released a CCTV photo of the suspect on Facebook, calling for anyone with information on the attack to come forward.
“We want to speak to this man following a suspected homophobic assault in #Erdington earlier this month,” the police force said in a statement.
“A 19-year-old man was with his partner when he was approached and punched in the face in McDonalds on Chester Road.
“The attacker was pulled away by someone else and left straight afterwards at around 9.40pm on 8 October.
“Fortunately, the victim was not seriously injured.
“Anyone with information can contact us via Live Chat at west-midlands.police.uk between 8am to midnight, call 101 anytime or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Quote crime reference number 20BE/235087R/18.”
On Tuesday October 16, the government launched an action plan to tackle out anti-LGBT+ violence.
The plan seeks to focus on better ways to protect and support victims, and includes £1.5 million of funding to support educational programmes to tackle prejudice.
As part of this, there will be a nationwide public information campaign to educate people about hate crimes and tackle intolerance.
The announcement of the action plan followed the release of the latest hate crime statistics by the Home Office, which showed that anti-transgender hate crimes surged by 32 percent up on the year before.
The government recently announced an action plan to tackle anti-LGBT+ hate crime. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)
There were 1,651 reports of anti-transgender hate crime in the past year, up from 1,248 in 2017.
The data also showed that anti-trans hate crimes are more likely to be violent offences than for any other hate crime category. Six percent of anti-trans hate crimes were for online offences, a higher proportion than for any other category.
Anti-trans hate crimes showed the biggest percentage increase compared to the previous year than all other categories of hate crime, except anti-religious acts, which rose by 40 percent.
Sexual orientation hate crimes rose by 27 percent over the past year, from 9,157 included in the 2017 data to 11,638 counted in the most recent report.
