Gay Bashed
1994
Whilst returning home late one evening I stopped off at the Selly Oak Cottage on the corner of Bristol Road and Harborne Lane. The toilet was empty and having spent a few minutes inside, I came out of the entrance which was hidden from view from the road to be confronted by a gang of 6 black youths. They immediately grabbed hold of me and started beating my head in. I tried to protect myself but there were too many of them and they all continued to kick hell out of me for what seemed ages. Finally they managed to get hold of my wallet and ran off.
Fortunately still conscious, I managed to get myself across the Bristol Road to a Video Hire shop that was open. They cleaned me up, generally took care of me and advised that I should get checked out at Selly Oak Hospital.
I felt extremely vunerable with no-one to turn to.
At Selly Oak casualty department I was rushed through to the Xray department as they suspected I had a fractured skull. Fortunately this wasn’t the case and I was eventually allowed home.
My face by that time was swollen up like a football, black and blue and I was barely recognisable as myself. Just like those ghastly pictures you see on TV.
At the time, I was working as a director of a large healthcare business with some fairly homophobic colleagues, I had decided never to risk coming out at work. Next day, I was due to go on a business trip to Sweden but was clearly in no fit state to go anywhere.
As a cover, I decided to tell my work colleagues that I had been robbed at a cashpoint and to avoid further questioning on my activities I decided never to report the matter to the police.
All I wanted to do was get my life back to normal again and put it all behind me – it was easier to think it was my own fault which it clearly wasn’t – and I felt very lucky to have survived.
Most friends never really knew what had happened to me……..
Contributed by: John Turner