The Star: March 07, 2024

The Star Thursday March 7 2024
16
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Gay bashing victim goes public:
Five youths have
been sentenced for a
series of unprovoked
attacks on gay men
across Christchurch,
filming the assaults.
Sam Sherwood speaks
to one of the victims
about the night he
thought he was going
to die
IT SEEMED innocent enough at
first. It was late on April 17 last
year and Kelly Hopkins was at
his home chatting with a man
on Grindr, a dating app popular
with gay men.
The man said he wanted
to meet Hopkins at a park in
Avonhead.
“It wasn’t that unusual because
you would generally meet
somewhere public and it was late
at night,” Hopkins recalls.
Hopkins, who doesn’t drive,
got an Uber to the park. Once
outside he messaged the man
asking him to come out on to the
street.
“He was quite insistent I go
into the park which I felt was a
bit dodgy.”
He told the man he wasn’t
going to go into the park, and
the man gave him an address for
a house nearby where he said he
lived.
Hopkins then got a Lime bike
and went to the address thinking
if something did go wrong he
could just bike off.
Once he got down to the end
of the street he saw someone
shining what appeared to be a
torch.
“He said ‘are you the guy from
Grindr’ and I said yes and he
said ‘my house is just over here
follow me’ and he just went to
like half turnaround and I said
no, I’m just going to go.
“I turned around on the bike
and he yelled something out
and all these figures in black just
came at me out of the dark.”
Hopkins isn’t sure exactly
how many people there were but
thinks it might have been about
eight.
ASSAULTED: Kelly Hopkins was one of 10 people attacked by the group.
PHOTO: GEORGE HEARD
“I just took off down the street
and I actually came off the bike
and that’s when they got on me
and beat the s*** out of me.
“I thought I was going to die.
I thought they were going to kill
me.”
The group kicked and punched
Hopkins while he was on the
ground, not saying anything to
him.
“I was yelling help me, call the
police. I was screaming bloody
murder. . . I was screaming for
my life. People in the houses
around started to yell out and
one of them turned on their
lights but nobody came outside.
The last thing he could
remember from the attack was
a rock hitting him in the head
before the group fled.
Once the offenders fled,
Hopkins yelled out for someone
to bring him a torch so he could
try to find his phone in the dark.
After waiting to see if someone
would come, he decided to get
back on the bike and head home,
worried the offenders might
come back.
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“I biked all the way back into
the city, it was about 45 minutes.
They’d broken my glasses so I
couldn’t really see anything and
it was about 1am.
“Every car that came I thought
was them coming after me.”
Once he got home he made an
online police report and called
a friend who came and helped
clean him up and put a bandage
on his head. A few hours later
he went with a colleague to
the scene and found his phone
“smashed to pieces”.
He also spoke to police about
the ordeal and worked from
home after telling his colleagues
he’d had a scooter accident.
That evening he went to the
after hours clinic to get looked at.
“I had an abrasion on my
elbows and knees and a massive
gash on my head, but I didn’t
know at the time because I was
still so in shock but I also had
bruised ribs. . . I couldn’t twist
or turn or sit down properly for
days.”
As the days turned into weeks,
Hopkins tried putting it all
behind him and moving on with
life.
“I tried to pretend it didn’t
happen.”
About six weeks after the
incident he got a call from police
asking if he could come in to
make a formal statement. Two
weeks later he got another call
from police to say they were
looking at some suspects they
had brought in following another
incident.
“[Police] said they’d found
videos on their phones and that’s
how they’d found these guys.”
Hopkins says police told him
the groups had filmed several
assaults and uploaded them to a
private group.
He says it was “horrific” to find
out his ordeal had been filmed.
Last week five youths were
sentenced in the Youth Court by
Judge Quentin Hix.
The sentencing began with
two of the victims reading their
victim impact statements.
The first of the two men, who
was 32 at the time, told the court
how he suffered “severe trauma”
to his face as a result of the
offending.
His cellphone was never
recovered, and he had to pay an
excess of $500.
“This offending caused
me a lot of physical pain, but
psychologically the pain is
ongoing.”
He hardly uses the app now, he
shelters himself away at home.
When he puts the bins out at
night he fears he will be attacked
and has regular flashbacks of the
offending.
His pants were pulled down
with his genitals exposed on
film.
He found it “too painful” to
talk about what happened with a
health professional and fears he
has PTSD.
The man said he now hid his
sexuality in fear of being beaten.
“It’s so upsetting to be
dehumanised, treated like an
object.”
The second man said the
impact of the attack continued
today physically and emotionally
and he had not told his family
what had happened.
He was scared of anyone
wearing hoodies on the street
and no longer felt safe, forcing
him to move several times since
the incident.
Judge Hix thanked both men
for reading their statements.
He said the catalyst for the
offending appeared to come from
social media videos depicting
violence against people in the US.
“The group has decided to
engage in copycat offending.”
He described the offending,
involving 10 attacks between
March and June last year, as
“extremely serious”.
Not all of the youths in court
were involved in all of the
offending.
The victims were “lured”
to areas late at night and then
attacked by members of the group.
One of the victims had arranged
to meet someone at a park. Once
he arrived he was punched and
kicked and called a paedophile
as the group demanded his
money and phone. Footage of the
incident was shared on social
media.
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