London clubber covered in blood after 'homophobic attack' as hate crimes rise

"She just started punching me in the head..." Harry told ITV News. New figures show gay hate crimes in London are rising.

A clubber was left covered in blood after an alleged homophobic attack near London's Heaven nightclub at the weekend.

Student Harry Batt, 21, said he was waiting for a bus home when a woman started hurling homophobic abuse before punching him on the back of the head.

She was wearing a ring which cut into his skin causing him to bleed down his head and neck.

"Some girl out of nowhere came up to me and starts hurling homophobic slurs directed towards me and getting aggressive," Harry told ITV News London.

"And then she just started punching me in the head, multiple times.

"There's a scuffle and friends try to pull her away and as soon as she does it [punches] she runs off into the road and flees the scene," he added.

Harry explained he felt angry and upset by what happened and said he was waiting to give a statement to police and hand over video of the attack.

"I called 101 [police non emergency line] requesting an update and they contacted me through Twitter as well and said I'd been assigned an investigating officer who would be in touch in due course," he said.

The Met Police said CCTV was being reviewed and officers were working with British Transport Police who spoke to Harry first.

"We have refreshed our overall approach to tackling hate crime in order to provide better support to victims, to enable a stronger response towards offenders of hate crime and to improve accessibility of our service to Londoners across all communities," Met Police said.

"We have continued to improve our proactive and reactive work in order to support the LGBT+ community.

"Specifically, the Met’s 125 volunteer LGBT+ advisers link in directly with the community to listen to concerns, feed directly back in to the service and encourage reporting of crime," the statement added.

The attack on Harry Batt comes during a sharp rise in homophobic hate crimes in the capital.

"Just because we have rights in law doesn't mean that everyone is truly accepting of it," Harry said.

"There are isolated incidents but they are becoming all too common.

"It won't stop me living my life, it won't stop me from going out, enjoying life and being myself and make me be a bit more careful coming out of these places," he added.

Owner of Heaven nightclub Jeremy Joseph said he was shocked by the attack and said London "wasn't a nice place to be" since the easing of lockdown.

"The streets on a Friday and Saturday night are horrible at the moment you can feel an atmosphere at times," he said.

"On Friday night, three people attacked our queue wearing balaclavas, police were about 50 metres away who chased them away.

"But they were willing to attack the queue in front of police that shows how bad it is on the streets at the moment," Joseph explained.

He said London needed better CCTV, better lighting, more police and the return of the Night Tube to make it safer for people to get home.

Looking back at the attack Harry said what happened could have been a lot worse and urged people to look out for each other.