Couple claim homophobic abuse has made their lives ‘hell’
A COUPLE say they have suffered homophobic abuse in the community where they live for the past 10 years.
David Jones and Ben Fennell say their lives have been made “hell” for the past decade. It recently resulted in a brick being thrown at Ben on New Year’s Day and him spending the night in A&E.
CCTV from New Year’s Day shows a person appearing to throw large items at the couple’s Rhondda home three times in the space of a few minutes – the last of them hitting 40-year-old Ben.
The couple, who have lived in Treorchy for more than 12 years, said they are now sick of living in fear.
David, who has suffered from anxiety for the past five years and now rarely leaves the house, said: “It’s very concerning and worrying.
“If I go out the front and there are kids in the street I go in the back garden. If there are kids in the park near our garden, then I go back in the house.
“You are constantly checking over your shoulder and being cautious of what you are doing.
“The community is nice. It’s just incidents that happen cause you to feel that you cannot go anywhere.”
David said the trouble started in 2007.
“It was quite trivial when it began. Kids would sometimes bang on our front door or shout ‘gay boy’ at us as we walked past.
“The police were informed but because we couldn’t actually specify anyone who was doing it, we thought ‘there you go, there’s nothing we can do.’
“That went on for two years,” he said.
David, 35, said the situation “escalated” in 2010 when a fire extinguisher was thrown through the front window.
The incident prompted the couple to install security cameras on the outside of their home.
But the problems continued, including one of the cameras being ripped off the wall and the house being pelted with items including bricks, stones, BB bullets, eggs, snowballs and even toy cars.
David said: “It’s a nice community. We keep ourselves to ourselves with this kind of thing because the last thing we want to do is say something to someone and get something back from them because it’s their kids doing it.
“A lot of the people are nice and it’s just the few that let it down unfortunately.”
David and Ben said they don’t want to have to leave their home.
“The house has got a tie to Ben because his late mum paid for it.
“We are staying here no matter what – we are not giving in. If we go, these people will only start doing this to someone else. It will all stop one way or another.
“All I want to do is live my life here and be able to take the cameras down without fear,” David said.
A South Wales Police spokeswoman said the force “takes hate crime seriously”.
She said: “Mr Jones and his partner are being supported by a hate crime officer and their local neighbourhood policing team.
“Extensive inquiries have been undertaken to establish who has been responsible for the crimes they have been victims of and these will continue until we bring someone to justice.
“If anyone has any information they should contact 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”