On August 14, Partners, Rob and Patrick, from Bicester, Oxfordshire, were in Birmingham for a friend’s housewarming party and, later that evening decided to celebrate in the famed Gay Village.
The pair left Missing Bar where they had initiated a light-hearted conversation with a group of men carrying balloons. After joking about whether the balloon was for a birthday, the group of four men, who were in a black SUV, retaliated in an aggressive manner and started physically assaulting Rob and Patrick. “They did not like that and went into all sort of foul language, including homophobic slurs directed at us,” the pair told the BBC.