(London) According to the Hampstead and Highgate Express, the 19-year-old man was sitting with his partner on the N5 bus outside Camden Town tube station just after 2am last Friday, 21 January 2005, when a group of men got on the bus and started to taunt him.

The paper says that when a female friend of the victim said, “You are only picking on him because he is gay,” the ringleader of the group punched the teenager in the head three times.

The man was taken to hospital with a swollen eye and cut lip, while the suspects got off the bus and ran towards Chalk Farm tube station.

The man who punched the victim is described as 21, 6ft 1ins with cropped ginger hair.

A spokesman for Camden Police said: "We will not tolerate hate crime of any kind on Camden Borough.

"All allegations are fully investigated and full support is given to those who have suffered such crimes.