Gay victims to face charges of breaching public peace after attackers file police report

The two gay women attacked in Hamrun are expected to charged with breaching the public peace and making obscene gestures at their attackers, according to a police writ presented in the law courts.

The teenagers, whose assault by two men in Hamrun precipitated a protest against homophobia and an announcement by the Prime Minister to strengthen laws against homophobic violence, will be charged after their attackers filed a police report against them.

Their case will be heard alongside the police charges against brothers Luke and Carlo Debono, and another attacker Mary Aquilina, for having assaulted the two friends and breaching the public peace.

The two women were dancing in a gazebo at the Fra Diegu square in Hamrun, when the two brothers started insulting them from the top of a nearby balcony. When the girls retaliated by shouting back at the boys, the two turned up and assaulted the women.

One of the girls was reported by The Times of having been manhandled before being head-butted, her hair pulled and dragged across the ground. One of the women ended up in a clinic with a fractured nose, a grazed face and bruises on her breasts.

The attackers cannot be charged with committing a hate crime because homophobia is not covered by law.

Following the sacking of an Arriva bus driver on 6 February assaulting two women in what the transport company said seemed to be a homophobic act, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi announced he had instructed justice minister Chris Said to tighten hate crime laws.