news

Mary Brandon told a man to stop grabbing her arse. Here's what he did next.

Trigger warning: This post contains a graphic image and may be distressing for some readers.

 

This is what Mary Brandon looked like prior to attending a famous festival on London on Monday:

 

And this distressing picture shows the British woman’s bloodied and swollen face afterwards:

The image is going viral, after the Leeds student took to Facebook to recount a frightening assault at Notting Hill Carnival that left her bruised and in pain.

Ms Brandon shared details of the horrifying attack in a post on Tuesday, saying she spent nine hours in the emergency ward after a male festival-goer groped her and became violent.

“At Notting Hill Carnival yesterday a man in the crowd grabbed my arse. When I told him not to, he did it again,” she wrote.

“I pushed him away, exercising my right to tell a man to stop touching my body without my permission, so he took a swing at me and punched me in the face,” she said, as reported by The Standard. 

“I spent 9 hours in A&E because of this coward.”

Ms Brandon said she was “so pissed off” that the perpetrator “thought it was OK to hit me” because she’d asked him to back off. 

“A woman should be able to leave the house without fear of being sexually assaulted,” she said. “And she should be able to defend herself without being put in hospital.”

“Maybe it’d be safer to just ignore it when someone invades your space and body. But I can honestly say I will always stand up to someone who thinks they can get away with this behaviour,” she said.

“If you think it is OK then don’t come to carnival next year. You’re not welcome there or anywhere in our society.”

Brava, Mary Brandon.

We couldn’t agree more.

 [post_snippet id=324408]