I Was Attacked For Intervening In A Sexual Assault

A-Level Results Day 2017. As one of the biggest nights out of the year – whether you were celebrating or alleviating yourself with 11 jägerbombs – the city centre was swarming with hundreds of charged teens on the cusp of adulthood and newfound independence.

As one club closed, it was onto the next and onto the next; no one ever ready to go home until distant luminescence forced night into day. An army of us, shouting typical British chants and obscenities, hobble towards the only remaining club open, which was kind of a distance – definitely a distance if you were in heels – from our main strip. Everyone is absolutely fucked. As a result, everything is heightened. Our emotions, responses, inclinations to blurt out our deepest darkest secrets. But it’s okay because no one would remember in the morning. And then I see it.

A boy, not a man, run towards my best friend and assault her. He looked proud, a really ugly insect-like smirk on his chapped lips, as if he’d accomplished what he set out to do that night. Somehow in the giant crowd, I’m the only one who has seen this and I was definitely not about to remain quiet about it, as people told me I should have after the whole ordeal. I should have stayed silent after witnessing some guy in a washed out fake Burberry shirt assault my best friend? Nah. Never.

I confront him there and then. I am enraged, disgusted, slurring at the top of my lungs. He looks at me like I’m truly delusional, like he has no idea what I’m talking about. I see his eyes change at certain words I throw at him; and now he knows. He knows I saw him. But if he was willing to do something like that so blatantly, in front of literally hundreds of people, what did he expect? No one to see? Or many to see and just ignore it? Anyway, I’m still shouting at him, and he’s shouting back. I don’t have a clue what he’s saying, partially because I don’t care and partially because I can’t hear him over my own voice. And then my recollection becomes blurry. I see him raise his fist and I feel my cheekbone ache. I see him run off and I see my friends rushing towards me. I start to cry, but not because I’ve been hurt, because I know fake Burberry boy will face no real consequences for his dirt-bag behaviour.

I try my chances anyway. As this happened outside the club, I run over to the bouncers and tell them everything, lowkey hoping someone will overhear me and say they saw everything too. One of the women I’m speaking to just stares at me, unbothered, chewing her gum like a tired donkey. She tells me there’s nothing they can do if I can’t locate the person who attacked my best friend and I. Is she expecting him to be hanging around nearby after he just sexually assaulted one girl and physically attacked another? I ask if they can look at the CCTV. Again, she says there’s nothing they can do, basically telling me to just swallow everything that’s just happened, and deal with it by myself. Sis…

I will not stop telling my story. Mainly to raise awareness of how some can unapologetically exercise their objectification and mistreatment of women, segregating us as second-class citizens and deeming us unworthy of respect, and also to highlight institutionalised discrimination. This particular establishment also kicked my friends and I out less than a week ago from today, for challenging one of their bouncers for exerting some crazy prejudiced views. For their sake, I won’t name them. I’m lying. They don’t give a fuck, so I won’t either:

Gorgeous Nightclub, Wolverhampton. For an LGBT club, you do absolutely nothing for the protection and support of minorities. And don’t forget you’re everyone’s last choice on a night out. Humble yourselves.

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