Liverpool Teen Recounts Brutal Bashing

Just hours before Saturday's antihomophobia march in the center of Liverpool, England, a 19-year-old student told the Liverpool Echo of his experience of being battered by a gang of eight people.

The Liverpool Community College student asked to remain anonymous as described being attacked at 7 p.m. November 18 while walking to catch a train at the James Street station (pictured). "Spotting the colorful and flamboyantly-dressed Wirral man, an eight strong gang pounced on him in Lord Street," the Echo reports, "hurling homophobic abuse and beating him up. The teenager ... was left covered in blood while the mob, aged only 12-14, fled the scene."

The student suffered a broken nose and will require surgery.

Gang violence in Liverpool appears to be on the rise. At the end of October, 12 youths were arrested in the attack and brutal beating of a gay off-duty police trainee. Merseyside police constable James Parkes, 22, was hospitalized in critical condition, having suffered skull fractures, a fractured eye socket, and a fractured cheekbone.

The 19-year-old student told the Echo, "Sadly, it's something that happens all the time in Liverpool, I expect it now. I was bombarded with punches, I didn't know where they were coming from. They were shouting, 'what the **** are you wearing?' I can't even get on the train without suffering abuse. It's everywhere I go. I wear colorful stuff, and lipstick, but if I didn't it would be restricting how I want to be."