You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. Kelly Hopkins was one of 10 people attacked by the group. Photo: NZ Herald Five youths have today been sentenced for a series of unprovoked attacks on gay men across Christchurch, filming the assaults.
New Zealand Herald senior crime reporter Sam Sherwood speaks to one of the victims about the night he thought he was going to die. It seemed innocent enough at first. It was late on April 17 last year and Kelly Hopkins was at his home in Christchurch chatting with a man on Grindr, a dating app popular with gay men. Once outside he messaged the man asking him to come out on to the street.
Hopkins then got a Lime bike and went to the address thinking if something did go wrong he could just bike off. I was screaming bloody murder… I was screaming for my life. People in the houses around started to yell out and one of them turned on their lights but nobody came outside. The last thing he could remember from the attack was a rock hitting him in the head before the group fled.
Once the offenders fled, Hopkins yelled out for someone to bring him a torch so he could try to find his phone in the dark. After waiting to see if someone would come, he decided to get back on the bike and head home, worried the offenders might come back. Once he got home he made an online police report and called a friend who came and helped clean him up and put a bandage on his head.
A few hours later he went with a colleague to the scene and found his phone "smashed to pieces". Kelly Hopkins says it was 'horrific' to learn the attack on him was filmed.
