Police in the United Kingdom say they won’t be prosecuting a group of men accused of shouting homophobic abuse at a lesbian woman on a plane.
Essex Police cited “evidentiary difficulties” over the incident, which occurred last June on a flight from Stansted, England, to Seville, Spain.
Laura Muldoon, social media manager for the Museum of London, tweeted a photo of a group of men, accusing them of shouting anti-gay slurs at her.
“First holiday snap!” she wrote. “Of this bunch of lads who chanted that I was a ‘miserable bitch’, ‘dyke’ and ‘lesbo’ (very well observed!) on [Ryanair].”
Muldoon said that the flight crew on Ryanair, a budget airline based in Ireland, “did nothing.”
In a later tweet, Muldoon accused the men of being “loud” and “annoying” from take-off.
“The noise kept rising and eventually I asked a flight attendant to tell them to be quiet and that they were swearing a lot,” she wrote. “I think at this point, the men realized it was me that made the complaint and started referring to me using my seat number while shhh-ing very loudly as a collective.”
Muldoon asked them to stop after they started “blowing up condoms on their heads and getting [their] arses out,” to which the men responded by trying to send her a bottle of wine via a flight attendant, which she “politely declined.”
Later in the flight, the group allegedly started calling her a “dyke,” and referencing her by her seat number, shouting “C28 never stops moaning, she’s a miserable bitch,” calling her a “dyke,” and chanting “lesbos, lesbos, lesbos.”
Muldoon said the flight attendants, who were sitting behind the men, told passengers that they’d spoken to the men but seemed “at their wits’ end.”
“I [have] friends who I know would, and do, feel more vulnerable in situations like this,” Muldoon said, “and who I wanted to speak out on behalf of from my relatively privileged position of being what some might say [is] more βstraight lookingβ. It felt like their behavior was totally out of control.”
Muldoon submitted a complaint to Ryanair, to which the airline responded by touting its “high standards of service and professionalism” which it said “[ensures] our staff are constantly reminded of their most important function: to be friendly and professional at all times.”
Ryanair added: “I do sincerely regret that this was not reflected to you on this occasion.”
Muldoon tweeted that the “generic response shows they donβt care about women, LGBTQ+ people or in fact anyone.”
However, while the incident was subsequently reported to Essex Police, BBC News reports that the men alleged to be involved will ultimately not face prosecution.
Muldoon and another woman made an official police complaint, but Essex Police said that “evidential difficulties” had prevented the “realistic prospect of a successful prosecution.”
A spokeswoman for Essex police said the force had conducted “extensive inquiries,” including interviewing a man voluntarily, and asked anyone with more information on the incident to come forward.
Homophobic attacks in the United Kingdom have been increasing in recent months, with the story of a lesbian couple attacked on a London bus last year making headlines worldwide.
Uganda's Constitutional Court upheld the bulk of Uganda's controversial Anti-Homosexuality Act, rejecting a petition seeking to overturn the law in its entirety.Β
The five-judge bench did strike down some components of the law as violations of the country's constitution, including the right to health and privacy.
They also struck down sections of the law allowing for the prosecution of Ugandans who fail to inform on others, including friends and neighbors, for committing homosexual acts; punishing those who allow their premises to be used to commit homosexuality; and criminalizing the transmission of a "terminal illness" through same-sex activity.
Anti-LGBTQ trolls have blamed openly gay Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for a bridge collapse in Baltimore believed to have killed six people after it was hit by a 95,000-ton cargo ship.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the Dali, a 985-foot container ship flying the Singapore flag, crashed into the bridge's reinforced concrete support pier.
The container ship, which was traveling at about 9 miles per hour, lost both engine power and electrical power to its control and communications systems minutes before it crashed into the bridge stanchion.
In the taut, London-set thriller Femme, a chance encounter between fabulously femme drag performer Jules, and macho, drug-dealing punk Preston kicks off a twisted cycle of both intense mutual attraction and disturbing violence that neither seems able or willing to resist.
First comes attraction. Jules, portrayed with brilliant openness by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, is standing outside the club in full drag as Aphrodite when she spots, hovering alone across the street, Preston, embodied with tightlipped, tattooed swagger by 1917 star George MacKay.
Jules, as Aphrodite, next sees Preston at a nearby corner shop among his rowdy friends. Someone slings the F-slur, then comes the violence of a vicious anti-LGBTQ attack that leaves Jules scarred and broken.
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