A Good Samaritan was followed home and threatened with a glass bottle by two thugs after stepping in to defend a teenage girl they were harassing on a tram, he claims.
Karl Jort was on his way home from work at around 4.30pm on July 14 in Greater Manchester when he said he spotted the girl being persistently pestered by two drunken men.
The 24-year-old described how the two men had circled round their victim - who he later learned was 19 - and continually made lewd comments before following her around the carriage when she tried to get away.
"She kept looking my way and it got to a point where I could tell something was going wrong," he told the Mirror.
Once the tram stopped at Eccles - the last station on the line - Karl offered to walk the girl home in the hopes the two men, who he estimates were in their mid-30s, would leave her alone.
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"I said 'do you know them?' And she said no, she'd sat on the tram and they sat next to her and one of them was like 'you’re going to be my wife' and made her feel uncomfortable so she got up and moved along the tram," he explained.
"And they followed her and basically were harassing her the whole journey home."
She told him one of the men had also taken a pill on the tram in front of her.
Karl said the thugs were initially much further back behind them on Liverpool Road before suddenly catching them up.
"I turned around and they were literally three feet away," he said.
"I turned the other way but in my head I was like 's***'.
"They were like 'what the f*** are you looking at? Don’t look at me like that', just clearly very unhappy I was walking with her and both circled in on us.
"They were just throwing abuse at me. It was a bit of a blur, I don’t even remember. I didn’t look them in the eye, I didn’t give them anything and just kept walking with this girl."
Karl said the girl had messaged her dad to come and pick her up and he realised if they kept walking along the main road then eventually the men may work out where he lived.
"It was a fight or flight moment. At this point they weren’t even interested in this girl, it was about me....it was as if she wasn’t there.
"I crossed the road and went down a side road to get away from them."
Karl thought he was safe and got his phone out but then heard one of them shout "Oi!" and turned around to see they had caught up with him.
"I’m like s*** because I’m not on the main road anymore," he said. "There’s no one around, I’m by myself and vulnerable."
He said the more vocal of the two chased right up to him and said "why the f*** are you on your phone? Don't walk away from me".
"I continued walking, he comes right up to me in my face - glass bottle in his hands. At that moment I was scared.
"He was that aggressive and unpredictable and angry.
"He was ready to attack. He was right up in my face, swearing, screaming. Saying this and that. It was a blur because it was so traumatic.
"I literally thought I’m going to get bottled. It’s going to hurl at my face. I stayed calm and didn’t respond, didn’t look him in the eye and didn’t give him any reason to hurt me," continued Karl.
"There was no one around and if that guy had bottled me or they’d both attacked me I don’t know if someone would have heard."
He then told them he was just trying to get home and they eventually backed off and left.
Karl followed the side street back round to the main road but said he was "so full of anxiety and so nervous in case it happened again".
"It was broad daylight but they were that out of it and that aggressive and that under the influence that they would have hurt someone if it wasn’t me."
Once he got home he said he locked the door and "needed to shake it off, I was shaking".
Karl said for several days he was anxious about leaving the house as he's fairly new to the area and is not sure what to expect.
But he worries what may have happened if he wasn't there.
He works in the city centre and said it's not the first time he's witnessed harassment on the tram, but usually much later at night.
"At that time you don’t expect it. It was sunny, it was broad daylight, it was rush hour and [the tram was] really busy.
"I’m not making excuses for them but maybe you’d expect that on Saturday night not a Wednesday afternoon to be in that state and harassing young girls.
"If they do this again with another girl and no one walks her home, my main concern was, even when I was shaken up, was what if I hadn’t walked her home? They might have caught up to her and there was no one with her."
The girl told him she often has similar experiences.
"Walking down the street, men shouting at her, harassing her, coming onto her. I’m gay but she was an attractive girl," he explained.
He said the two men might not even have lived in Eccles and "might have just stayed on the tram to follow her home".
And what also concerns him is that despite plenty of other people being on the tram, no one else did anything to step in.
He said the two men appeared "quite stand off-ish and dangerous" which may have put other people off.
"Clearly no one said anything or intervened or helped her. It wasn’t until I offered to walk her home. Maybe because they were quite stand off-ish and dangerous."
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said the incident has not been reported to police.
Inspector Steve Henderson, of GMP's Transport Unit, said: "As a force we are committed to keeping people safe and secure, with a dedicated Transport Unit team ensuring this happens throughout the public transport system within Greater Manchester.
"We will ensure that we place the needs of victims at the heart of our approach and any vulnerable victims are appropriately safeguarded.
"Every person that uses our transport network should be free to travel in and around Greater Manchester without fear or concern, and it is vitally important that if you've witnessed or been a victim of crime, you report it to ourselves at the first available opportunity.
"This can be done via a number of ways such as the online reporting function on our website or by calling 101. Alternatively you can report any incident anonymously to CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111. Always call 999 in an emergency."
