Police Investigate "Homophobic Abuse" At Waltham Forest Pride

29 July 2019, 10:42

A video of a woman shouting "Shame on you, you despicable people" at the Waltham Forest Pride event is being looked into by police after it was shared on social media.

Footage posted on Twitter shows a woman wearing a niqab yelling at people, including one person in a rainbow flag at a Pride event on Saturday.

In the video the woman can be heard shouting: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Shame on you, shame on all of you."

"Shame on you, you despicable people. Shame on you, you shameless people."

Nobody has been arrested yet and police said their inquiries are continuing.

The Met police tweeted that abusing someone because of their sexual orientation is a hate crime and said: "If you have been verbally or physically abused, harassed or attacked in any way by someone because you are or they think you are LGBT+ please report these crimes to police or through a third party agency."

LBC interviewed Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about the incident who said: "This is homophobic language that is unacceptable in London, it is almost certainly a hate crime."

He added that he's proud to have led the Pride March across London for the last three years and said: "I want a message to be sent out loud and clear that here in London you're free to be who you want to be, you're free to love who you want to love."

"Here in London you aren't simply tolerated but you are respected, celebrated and embraced."

Waltham Forest Pride gave a statement about the incident on Twitter, saying while they "condemn all homophobic abuse", they want to make it "absolutely clear that this was one, lone individual and in no way do that person's views represent the views of any section of the local community."

The tweet also acknowledged that people of all major faiths, "Christian, Jewish and Muslim, marched alongside non-religious people" to "celebrate and cherish the diversity" of the community.