Four teenage boys have been charged with an aggravated hate crime after a suspected homophobic attack on two women on a London bus.
Melania Geymonat, 28, and her girlfriend, Chris, 29, were left needing hospital treatment after the attack – in which a phone and a bag were stolen – in the early hours of 30 May. A photograph of the couple’s bloodied faces went viral in the days after.
The boys have been charged with an aggravated hate crime under the Public Order Act. They will appear at Highbury Corner youth court on 21 August.
Geymonat and Chris had been travelling on a night bus in Camden when a group of boys allegedly began demanding that they kiss and called them “lesbians” after realising they were a couple.
The women were subsequently assaulted, leaving them with facial injuries.
Geymonat, a flight attendant originally from Uruguay, previously said: “We decided to tell the story because this situation needs to change, and maybe this helps a little. For me, it was a moral obligation. This needs to stop. This was a terrible episode, and maybe [if] we say something, we can contribute to something bigger.”
Three of the boys, aged 15, 16 and 17, are from Kensington and Chelsea, west London. The 16-year-old has also been charged with possession of cannabis while the 15-year-old has been charged with handling stolen goods.
Another 16-year-old boy, from Wandsworth, south-west London, has been charged with theft and handling stolen goods.
In June, two teenagers were arrested on suspicion of assault after what was claimed to be a homophobic knife attack in Liverpool. In the same month, a Guardian analysis found that homophobic and transphobic hate crimes had more than doubled in England and Wales over the last five years. The rate of LGBT hate crime per capita increased by 144% between 2013-14 and 2017-18. Police recorded 11,600 crimes in the most recent year of data, more than doubling from 4,600 during this period.