Police constable who proposed at Pride London 'wishes he hadn’t done it' after torrent of abuse

A police constable who proposed to his partner at Pride London has said he wishes he hadn’t done it because of the torrent of abuse he faced.

PC Phil Adlem was widely celebrated last year when he popped the question to Jonathan Sammons at the festival in London.

However, twelve months later, ahead of this Saturday’s Pride in London parade, Mr Adlem has expressed regret at his proposal because of the hatred he received in its aftermath.

His proposal in front of hundreds of other revellers at the event was captured on camera and went viral.

Writing in The Guardian a year later, Mr Adlem said most of the online comments he read about the proposal were positive.

‘To suddenly be the focus of an international viral video was unexpected and surreal to say the least,’ he wrote.

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‘Nevertheless, I was on an emotional high in the immediate aftermath: I had a wonderful fiancé and I was getting amazing messages of support from friends and colleagues.

‘I looked through the online comments from the British public. Most were fantastic.

‘But my smile did not last long as I continued reading. “Both should be hanged till death”, “Absolutely disgusting” and “Don’t blame Isis if they strike them!”. There were countless more, some with threats.

‘A further hostile reaction at work from one of my colleagues and another from an old college friend was enough for me to wish I had never done it.’

Mr Adlem said he ended up rejecting all requests for interviews from the media. He also wrote about how he was beaten up on his 18th birthday.

’This was by no means my first experience of homophobia,’ he said.

‘On my 18th birthday, I went out with my “secret boyfriend” and was the victim of a brutal homophobic attack in which I was dragged down a narrow alleyway by three men and severely beaten without a chance of defending myself. They did not stop until they were forced to by the police who arrived at the scene.’

But Mr Adlem said he felt ‘lucky to live in a time when I can join the police service as an openly gay man’.

He said Pride remained vital because it is ‘an invaluable source of positivity and strength for anyone who has experienced abuse or bullying’.