Two teen girls attacked after Stoke-on-Trent Pride by gang in homophobic attack
The 14 and 16-year-old girls were pulled from a taxi around 6pm
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
Two teenager girls were pulled from a taxi during a homophobic attack after Stoke-on-Trent Pride.
Over the weekend, a 14-year-old bisexual girl and her 16-year-old friend were surrounded by a group of people while inside a taxi on June 15.
Mobile phone footage shows the girls were pulled from the taxi and were beaten and attacked by the gang after they celebrated Pride.
A 14-year-old girl told StokeonTrentLive: “We’d had a great time at Pride then all of a sudden this group appeared and started chasing the taxi.
“They pulled open the door and started attacking them. There were girls screaming at us. They told us to, ‘Go kill yourselves’ and said we should die.
“One of them shouted ‘f*****s’. I’ve had a few things said to me before but nothing like this.
“It was mainly girls but there were some boys too. It was right outside the YMCA.”
After the attack, the teenager – who was celebrating her fourth Pride parade – said she has been having panic attacks.
She said: “I’m part of the LGBTQ community and this has made me really nervous now. I couldn’t breathe, and I was having panic attacks.
“After it happened, I took my Pride flag off and put it in my bag. We want to get this out there that homophobia is still a very real problem in a city like Stoke-on-Trent. It’s really shaken us up.”