The victim of a violent sexual attack at the hands of a sadistic gay couple he met on Grindr is finally breaking his silence.
Speaking anonymously with the Northhampton Chronicle, the middle-aged male explained that he was lured to a small house in the quiet suburb of Little Billing located in eastern Northampton in England last July by two men he met on the hookup app.
The men, 20-year-olds Jordan Bridge-Simmons and Tyrone Platt, were waiting for the victim naked. When he arrived at their house, they led him into a darkened bedroom, blocked the exit and restrained him. Then they stole his phone and proceeded to beat him mercilessly.
“I have never in my life hit anyone and I’d never been hit,” the man, a former member of the air force, recalled. “I was so frightened. I can’t put into words how terrified I was.”
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He was beaten nonstop for an entire hour and suffered a bruised diaphragm as a result.
Halfway through the assault, the assailants brought out two large machetes and began waving them in the air.
“When they brought the knives out in the dark you could hear them scraping them together,” the man said. “I thought I was going to be killed, I really did.”
That’s when victim snapped into survival mode.
“You see these programs about victims of rape and assault where they say try to remember as much as you can,” he said, “and that’s all I was fixated on. I was taking what they were giving to me and trying to remember every step of the way.”
After the assailants had finished terrorizing their victim, they got dressed then led him from the bedroom to the top of a staircase. They kicked his legs out from under him, sending him tumbling downward. Then, ordering him back up, he was taken to a nearby ATM, where he was made to withdraw £300 (approx. $425 U.S.) before he was released from their captivity.
“I don’t hate them because hate is a strong thing,” the victim said. “I kind of feel sorry for them, really.” But, he added, “Nobody deserves to be robbed and beaten up like that.”
Recorder Geoffrey Kelly said the pair targeted gay men who were middle-aged or older because they believed the men would be too embarrassed by the suggestive Grindr messages to report the robbery.
Both Bridge-Simmons and Platt were sentenced this week to six years each in prison for the attack.
