Police have appealed for information after a drag artist was injured in an alleged homophobic assault in Cardiff.

Sabastian Samuel and his partner were celebrating their engagement with some friends, before collecting some food from McDonalds.

“It all happened very quickly to be honest,” Mr Samuel told Sky News.

“Before I knew it, my boyfriend was pushed and punched to the floor.”

Mr Samuel was then “knocked out clean and was on the floor unconscious”. He broke his jaw in the incident.

“Some of my friends are saying to me, I’m just happy you’re alive,” he added.

South Wales Police have appealed for information relating to the incident which allegedly took place at around 3.15am on Sunday, 21 April.

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They said a homophobic remark was made during the incident and that it was being treated as a hate crime.

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The force said responding to hate crimes was a “priority” for them.

In a social media appeal, they have asked to speak with two men in connection with the alleged assault.

Lost engagement ring

Mr Samuel is the director of Drag Queen Story Hour UK and says he is the first drag artist in Europe to read stories to children in a nursery and a library.

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“The reason why this happened is because we were two gay men holding hands,” he said.

“What this has made us want to do, is it now makes us want to walk around town holding hands more.”

During the incident, Mr Samuel’s partner lost the engagement ring.

“I became extremely distressed, and I felt destroyed on the inside from it all,” he said.

“I was begging to be taken back to where it happened… because I just wanted to go and look for the ring.”

Long search

He left the hospital and spent “hours looking for the ring”.

“I found it. It was a relief, but I was sobbing,” he added.

“At this point in time, I also had a broken jaw, and I didn’t realise… although I knew something was wrong.”

Mr Samuel said that this was “not the first battle scar [he had] for being a gay man in this country”.

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