‘Dangerous’ thug who smashed gay man’s jaw and broke his trans boyfriend’s nose jailed for almost 10 years
The brutal attack left one victim afraid to leave the house. (Stock photograph via Envato Elements)
A thug who left a gay couple in a trauma unit after a brutal homophobic, transphobic attack has been jailed for nearly 10 years.
Brandon Taylor, 19, will serve an extended sentence of nine and a half years after a Worcester Crown Court judge in England ruled he was a dangerous offender on Friday (14 May).
Taylor admitted grievous bodily harm with intent and actual bodily harm after attacking William Senior and his partner Barnaby Edgar, who is trans, as they walked to a Morrison’s supermarket in Malvern.
He was also convicted of a string of other malicious attacks across the Worcester and Malvern areas, where Taylor bit a McDonald’s patron, bit a police officer, battered one man with a pool bar and robbed a victim of his £150 skateboard.
On 20 September, 2019, Senior and Edgar, who both live with anxiety and depression and are on the autistic spectrum, were approached by a group of “rowdy males”, prosecutors said, according to Worcester News.
Taylor, alongside another man, lobbed homophobic and transphobic slurs at them before brutally beating them with knuckle dusters until they were both unconscious.
Senior was left with an open wound to the left of his temple and his jaw was broken in at least two places, which forced him to be placed on a liquid diet for eight weeks. Edgar suffered a broken nose.
One of the other men in the group of attackers, Asfandyar Kiani, 21, was handed a similarly hefty sentence of nine years in March.
Taylor also admitted two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for punching Bryn Hayes at a McDonald’s in Worcester city center 21 February, 2019. He bit into the victim’s ear and, when asked to leave by staff, proceeded to stick the victim again in the cheek.
On that same day, he lobbed a pool ball at Christopher Lancaster at the Horn and Trumpet pub.
The following day, he made off with a victim’s skateboard by a bus stop along London Road.
He also stole a meal deal BP Garage in Castle Street on 31 December and, later that day, punched a man in the jaw at McDonald’s in Worcester.
When approached by police, he bit one officer, PC Bradbury, and said: “You’re not arresting me. I’m going to bed.”
