Ben Stokes Defended Gay Men While Also Making Fun Of Them
Did British athlete Ben Stokes defend two gay men in a bar fight, or did he act rudely to them? Conflicting information is coming out of Stokes’s ongoing trial.
Famous British Cricket player Ben Stokes was arrested last year after a viral video went around showing Stokes getting into a bar fight in Bristol.
Stokes, who is a star player for The UK Ashes cricketing team, was momentarily benched after news of his arrest hit. That said, reporter Piers Morgan then came forward with the story that Stokes got into the fight to defend two gay men who were being attacked.
BREAKING:
I'm hearing that Ben Stokes intervened to help two gay guys who were being abused by yobs, one of whom was armed with a bottle.— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
Many were skeptical of this story and felt it was a made up defense for the famed athlete.
Shortly after, two gay men came forward to say that they were the two who Stokes protected. Kai Berry and Billy O’Connell shared that they had met Stokes while in the pub called the Clifton Triangle. Stokes was kind enough to not only befriend them and offer them beers, but to defend them when random homophobes attacked outside the establishment.
“‘I chat to everyone and they were quite fit so we partied with them for a bit.” Barry told the Sun.
“We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero. If Ben hadn’t intervened, it could have been a lot worse for us,” O’Connell added.
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Police then announced at the start of this year that they would be officially charging Stokes, and the two homophobes, with affray (fighting in public).
“Following a review of all the available evidence, the CPS has today authorized the police to charge three men with affray in connection with the incident,” the Crown Prosecution Service said.
“Ben Stokes, 26, Ryan Ali, 28, and Ryan Hale, 26, are all due to appear before Bristol Magistrates’ Court on a date to be fixed in relation to this charge.”
Now, Stokes’s court case is currently underway and new information says that he may have acted rudely to the two gay men.
The prosecution came forward with information that Stokes imitated the two gay men’s “camp behavior” with arm gestures before flicking a cigarette in their direction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n46EqBg9tuM
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The prosecution also tried to frame Stokes as a vagrant who used unnecessary force that went “well beyond acting in self-defense or defense of another.”
“Mr Stokes’s behaviour outside the nightclub sets an important tone for what happened that night,” prosecutor Nicholas Corsellis told the Bristol Crown Court, according to GayStarNews and the BBC.
“He was clearly frustrated and annoyed. He took to acting in a provocative and offensive way.”
“He knocked Mr Hale unconscious and then – after time to pause for thought, to calm – he did exactly the same to Mr Ali,” Corsellis added.
So, was Ben Stokes rightfully protecting two gay men from a bashing? Was he a violent force that took the situation too far? Or, was he a mix of both? We’ll see what the court decides in due time.
h/t: The Sun, GayStarNews, The BBC
