Jack Green. (Kent Police)
A teenager just 16 years old plunged a knife into a woman’s chest in a startling biphobic attack in Canterbury, England.
In a crime that the victim says “scarred” her for life, Jack Green met student Megan Murphy and her friends at a Direct Pizza in Northgate during the early hours of October.
But after trailing the group, Green and four others took aim at Muprhy’s bisexual friend. As a scuffle broke out, Green stabbed Muprhy in the chest, leaving her with a permanent scar, Kent Police said in a news release.
“Regularly, I wake up in the middle of the night replaying the attack,” she told Canterbury Crown Court, according to KentOnline, which overturned reporting restrictions on the case.
“It has absolutely scarred me for life – I am a shadow of my former self.”
Teen threw bricks and bottles at bisexual man and his friends
Joined by four others, Green initially struck up a friendly conversation with Muprhy and her friends at around 2:30am 23 October.
But the mood in the pizzeria quickly bristled with tension when Green began to berate Muprhy’s bisexual friend, Lewis Eaves.
Eaves described the almost “animalistic rage” Green showed towards him, leaving him “appalled by the biphobic attitude” the teen showed.
Green and the others trailed Muprhy as they left towards Victoria Row.
Biphobia quickly curdled into violence as the group jerry-rigged weapons and lobbed bricks and bottles at Muprhy and her pals.
They even smashed a nearby telephone box all while shouting anti-LGBT+ insults, saying “she’s feisty” and “she’s dead”.
Surveillance footage played at the Canterbury Crown Court showed the harrowing moment the two groups stood inches from one another.
Off-camera, Murphy screams as Green’s group flees the scene – prosecutor James Benson said that Green had drawn a curved blade and stabbed Murphy.
“He raised the knife over his head,” Benson described, “Megan Murphy raised her hands to protect herself, she stepped backwards and the defendant plunged the knife into her upper right chest.”
As much as Muprhy has since made a full recovery, the trauma of what happened to her had been engraved in her mind; and etched, literally, on her chest. She was forced to pause her studies as a result.
Green’s attorney, Paul Jackson, sought to stress that his client was “deeply ashamed, remorseful” and “upset to the pain he had caused”.
Green was drunk at the time of the incident, Jackson said. If he weren’t, the attack would have never taken place.
The defendant also wished to hand Murphy a letter apologising for his actions, the court heard.
He pleaded guilty to wounding with intent and using threatening words and behaviour at a prior hearing.
Recorder Matthew McDonagh handed Green, from the coastal town of Whitstable, 54 months inside a Young Offender’s Institute.
Green will have time spent on remand deducted from his overall sentence.
“You plunged the knife from an overhead position into the right chest of Miss Murphy,” McDonagh recounted.
“You shouted homophobic abuse, you had a knife, and you used it.”
It comes as Britain has been gripped by a rising tide of violence, with hate crimes against LGBT+ people skyrocketing year on year.
Punched, kicked, spat on and being called hateful slurs were among the 19,679 hate crimes that have taken place between 2020 and 2021, according to British police figures.
This number, already dizzying in its height, is undoubtedly even higher. Government figures show how nine in 10 anti-LGBT+ hate crimes go unreported.
Inspector Guy Thompson, of Canterbury Community Safety Unit, said: “Canterbury is a welcoming city which is home to a diverse range of people.
“Kent Police is fully committed to tackling hate crime of any kind and will respond to all reports by seeking out perpetrators and, where possible, bringing them before the courts.”