A group of teenage boys had pelted the two women with coins and asked them to perform sex acts on a bus before a fight broke out that left the couple bloody and beaten. One of the defendants has been ordered to attend diversity lessons earlier today.
As we reported in an earlier article, two women were subjected to homophobic comments and obscene gestures after refusing to kiss upon command for a group of young men. A fight ensued that the Lesbian couple walked away from with injuries.
Lesbian couple violently beaten in London bus for refusing to kiss for men
The incident dates back 30 May. On 5 June Melania Geymonat took to her Facebook page to write of the harrowing attack. She explained that she and her girlfriend Chris must have kissed, garnering the attention of a group of four men who proceeded to hound the couple, asking them to kiss in front of them: "They started behaving like hooligans, demanding that we kissed so they could enjoy watching, calling us ‘lesbians’ and describing sexual positions."
Police later confirmed in a statement that "the women were then attacked and punched several times before the males ran off the bus. A phone and bag were stolen during the assault."
All three defendants admitted using abusive words to cause distress against the couple shortly before the trial started.
One of the boys who made homophobic gestures at the couple has this Monday been ordered to attend diversity lessons. The 15-year-old was also given a youth referral order of eight months featuring work on hate crime. He was also sentenced to a 10-day activity requirement including 20 hours of community reparation and banned from contacting the other two defendants for four months.
The teenager accepted the events without a basis of plea and offered an apology to the two women at the court hearing this Monday: "I feel sorry for the victims, it didn’t have to escalate like that.”
The judge on the case underlined that the court "very strongly disapproves of the sort of behaviour" the defendant exhibited. He said: “They were in a relationship, they were happy, they were simply enjoying the pleasures of life and being in love.
“They were met with disgusting and degrading behaviour and you should feel thoroughly ashamed of your conduct.”
One of the other boys involved in the attack was sentenced to an eight-month youth referral order earlier this week. The third defendant was sentenced to a four-month youth rehabilitation and supervision order last month.
