A Sunshine Coast gay couple have been left shaken by a vicious homophobic attack in Noosa.
Joshua Dickson and his boyfriend Alex Vlasits were on their way home from a Noosa nightclub just after midnight last Saturday night.
Alex leaned on Joshua for the short walk towards their Uber, but on their way through a carpark the pair were approached by a group of youths Joshua said appeared to be in their late teens.
“One came right up close in my face, we just tried to leave, but they managed to separate us,” Joshua told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
“They got [Alex] from behind. I watched him fall to the ground. They coward punched him.
“One of them then hit me before going back to Alex. They smashed my phone out of my hand and tried to stomp on it.”
Before the attack, the couple had heard the group use homophobic slurs but chose to ignore them.
“They called Alex a faggot. Kept saying we shouldn’t be together cause we are men,” he said.
“That in itself is not okay. And Noosa is the last place I’d expect it to happen.”
Both of the men were left with concussions – Alex so severe he had to miss work – and Alex suffered bruising to his head and a cut to his ear.
Joshua said the attack had left them both traumatised.
He wrote on Facebook that it was the first and only such incident he’d encountered since moving to Noosa.
“I’ve only been here for 12 months and in the time I’ve lived in Noosa I’ve had the most amazing times out. Everyone I’ve encountered has been lovely,” he said.
“To be targeted for being the individual you are, is the most degrading and disgusting thing I have ever experienced in my life.”
After the incident, the couple gave statements to police who are investigating.
The couple asked for anyone who was in the Hastings Street area at Noosa Heads and to contact police with any information about the group, who were out the front of the Sofitel resort and the Bay Village carpark.
(Photo courtesy of Joshua Dickson)
