Homophobic vandals wreak thousands of pounds of damage in an attack on a local Pride event -TGN

Dewsbury Pride went ahead on Saturday (July 15) despite vandals hacking through the event’s marquee. (Dewsbury Pride/Facebook)

Dewsbury Pride organizers have revealed they were “devastated” when vandals smashed the marquee set up to host the small event in West Yorkshire.

The damage done is said to have cost the organizers and the pub hosting the local Pride thousands of pounds.

However, organizers have since crushed a fundraising goal to repair the damage and replace items.

Chloe Mitchell, one of the organizers of Dewsbury Pridetold PinkNews that the event, hosted by Leggers Inn, began receiving emails targeting it a week before it was held on Saturday (July 15).

These emails included threats of legal action and the launch of a Twitter group threatening to protest the event with a rally where no one showed up.

After the failed protest, Mitchell said organizers showed up on the morning of the event to find their marquee cut to shreds.

‘We were all broken’

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks processing all of this,” Mitchell said.

“The day of the event we showed up around 9am to find they had brought knives to the marquee and cut everything open. We have no doubt that it is the same people who threatened to stop the event.

“The venue (Leggers Inn) was so helpful and they refused to back down despite what people had said and done. They have fully supported us and made the location available to us for free.”

“We were all devastated,” Mitchell said of the vandalism, but she also highlighted the community’s heartwarming response. Within half an hour of discovering the damage, people gathered to make sure the event went ahead.

“It was like seeing the best and worst of humanity in the space of about 24 hours.

“We all came together and worked it out as best we could. We held the event and it went very well. The publicity of what they did probably helped the event.

An “emotional day” was taken over by “community pride,” Mitchell said, as people banded together to get the event going.

a GoFundMe set up to raise around £4,000 for the vandalism and damage to Leggers Inn property has already met its target.

“You must always stand on the side of the right”

“Our commitment to our local community extends to every member, regardless of sexual orientation, race or anything else that discriminates against people,” said a spokesman for the Legger’s inn told PinkNews.

They added: “We believe that you should always be on the right side, which is why we continued with the event.

“We may have been destroyed, but we were also helped, donated to and supported and that’s the true nature of our local community.”

In June, the former chairman of Gloucestershire Pride invited vandals who vandalized Pride banners and covered them in homophobic graffiti to attend the event and “educate” themselves.

The invitation followed a Bristol lesbian couple who spoke out after their Pride doormats were stolen and vandalized in an incident that left them “heartbroken” but saw their neighbors rally to support them.