By Josh Milton

Copyright metro

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People travel well over an hour, often by car or train, just to see the face of George Waterfield, 30.

With his business partner, Darren Cunningham, 33, George runs Leicester’s first openly queer hair salon, The Secret Garden.

For years, the pair have hung LGBTQ+ Pride flags outside their business along Avenue Road Extension, in the Clarendon Park neighbourhood.

It’s a small act, George told Metro, that shows that the gender-neutral salon is a refuge for the LGBTQ+ community.

But these flags have been ripped down six times in the last two years and three times in the past four months, George said.

A flag was torn from a flagpole above the entrance in May, a trans Pride flag was damaged in August and a rainbow flag was stolen on Sunday.

A passerby saw the moment a man ripped down a rainbow flag hanging outside The Secret Garden (Picture: George Waterfield)

CCTV footage shared with Metro shows that, just after 11.20am, a man cycled towards Secret Garden and climbed up the wall to grab the flag.

The man, dressed all in black with his face covered, threw the flag to the ground and cycled over it before fleeing the scene, the surveillance video showed.

Even the flagpole had been snapped off the storefront.

‘For the salon to get vandalised and to get hate crimes like this, it’s absolutely disgusting,’ George said.

‘I won’t stand for it. I won’t stand for it at all.’

George only found out about the incident after a passerby took photographs and sent them to him on social media.

George Waterfield (left) and Darren Cunningham run the salon (Picture: George Waterfield)

George, who appeared on ITV2 dating show The Cabins in 2021, added: ‘These incidents have made me feel quite vulnerable.

‘To be an openly gay man who owns a queer business that supports the community and to feel personally targeted, I think it’s disgusting.’

What unnerved George the most was that this happened in the middle of the day in front of bystanders.

‘I don’t know what this person looks like, I could be cutting his hair next week. What’s to stop him from walking into the salon and doing something?’ he said.

From 2011 to 2015, the UK was considered the safest place in Europe to be LGBTQ+, according to an annual ranking known as the Rainbow Map.

This year, the UK was ranked 22nd out of 49 countries, a fall that campaigners say is down to the decline of trans rights and increasing anti-LGBTQ+ violence.

George, who appeared on ITV2’s The Cabins, said the vandalism has left him feeling ‘vulnerable’ (Picture: George Waterfield)

Darren, who starred in E4’s The Big Blow Out, decided to make the salon gender-neutral in 2023 (Picture: George Waterfield)

Homophobic hate crimes have increased by 462% since 2012. Transphobic violence and abuse, meanwhile, has swollen from 310 reports recorded in 2012 to 4,732 last year, an increase of 1426%.

Galop, an anti-LGBTQ+ violence charity, has seen the switchboard for its helplines light up in recent years by queer callers saying they have suffered abuse, its interim CEO, Ben Kernighan, told Metro.

‘We’ve also seen a wider trend of perpetrators feeling increasingly emboldened in their abuse of our community – even using those harmful media narratives to justify their abuse,’ he added.

‘Hate-motivated attacks should never happen, let alone be encouraged. More needs to be done to show the LGBTQ+ community that these crimes are being taken seriously.’

This can make flying a rainbow flag all the more powerful, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall told Metro.

‘The Pride flag is one of many symbols of identity and inclusion and helps LGBTQ+ people feel included in society,’ they said.

Trans rights have been chipped away in recent years, campaigners say (Picture: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire)

‘Right now, the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans people, are feeling deeply worried, uncertain and increasingly isolated as we face a rollback of LGBTQ+ rights, so this visibility is needed more than ever.’

George knows how powerful the Pride flag, which has been carried, flown and draped over the shoulders of countless activists for decades, can be.

‘We will fly another Pride flag,’ he said. ‘Absolutely.’

An investigation into the incidents has been launched, Leicestershire Police confirmed to Metro.

They added: ‘I can confirm that we have received a report relating to two incidents of theft and criminal damage. The incidents took place at a premise in Avenue Road Extension, Leicester.

‘Sometime between August 23 and 24, a flagpole displaying a trans flag was damaged, and on September 14, someone took a LGBTQ+ flag down.

‘The reports are being investigated as a hate crime. If anyone has any information which may help with our enquiries, they are asked to get in touch.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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