Homophobic arson attack victim tells of his pain

10:41am Wednesday 20th February 2008

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The victim of Sonny Lockwood's homophobic arson attack has spoken out about how the hate crime caused him and his partner to suffer nervous breakdowns and almost lose their home.

Nicholas Hughes, 42, and his partner of 16 years Peter Cameron, 59, suffered years of "horrendous" verbal homophobic abuse from Sonny Lockwood and members of his gang before he set their house in North Downs Crescent, New Addington, on fire.

“For forgiveness to be earned there must be remorse shown. I saw no remorse from any of the Lockwood family.”

Nicholas Hughes

Lockwood, 20, was under the conditions of a two-year Asbo and was banned from entering Fieldway and New Addington when he poured petrol through the letter box on the door of the couple's home.

Mr Hughes said that at first he was not affected by the incident and went into "witness mode" doing as much as he could to help the police. However, two weeks after it happened he had a breakdown and was prescribed anti- depressants.

Five weeks into his course, his partner had a nervous breakdown. "I felt that both of us could not be on the anti-depressants and off work at the same time," he said. "We could not afford it. I took myself off the anti-depressants to help him cope." He said that Mr Cameron was still on medication.

"The upshot of all this is that we nearly lost our house. We fell behind on the mortgage because of the lack of support from insurance," Mr Hughes said. "These are the aspects that do need to be highlighted. Victims of crime are not necessarily bad debtors but you become one if you fall behind."

Now that Lockwood has been sentenced Mr Hughes said that he is going to go through a programme of psychotherapy. "It's time for me to move on, time for me to evaluate and learn to enjoy life again. We are both vulnerable but Peter is doing very well," he added.

Mr Hughes said Lockwood's 10 year jail sentence "was probably fair" and that people often asked him if he had forgiven him. He said: "For forgiveness to be earned there must be remorse shown. I saw no remorse from any of the Lockwood family."