Fridae

Strathclyde Police said that at least three gay men have been sexually assaulted in separate attacks by a gang but investigators say there likely have been far more attacks but the victims are fearful or embarrassed to come forward.

Detectives have described the incidents as "particularly violent and distressing." The police revealed that each assault was carried out by three men who preyed on young men making their way home after nights out in the city's west end, according to the Glasgow Evening Times.

Police would not say whether the men were raped but said all three attackers were involved in the sexual assaults. Although the police had released details of the attacks earlier this month, they had only revealed recently that the attacks were sexually motivated.

The gang sexually assaulted two of the known victims within hours of each other on the same night.

On 13 September, a 22-year-old was assaulted by a group of men on Queen Margaret Drive. The victim was dragged to a nearby park area and sexually assaulted by all three men.

It is believed that the same gang sexually attacked a second man, 25, in Belmont Street in the early morning of 14 September. He was left semi-conscious and required medical attention.

The police believe that the two incidents may be linked to an incident which took place in the early hours of Sunday, 6 July. A 25-year-old man was walking home alone again on Belmont Street, near Doune Gardens. Police said he was attacked from behind in an attempt to assault him sexually. The victim escaped the sex attack but was slightly injured.

While the detectives have said they did not know if the motivation for the assaults, or if the attackers are gay or straight, they have stressed that there is nothing to suggest that the attacks are hate crimes. They added that the victims were apparently being selected because they were men but not because they were perceived by the attackers to be gay.

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Police are appealing to any person who may have been the victim of a similar attack to contact the police and to go for an HIV test. All three victims were given HIV tests but the test results were not made public.

Currently, male rape is not recognised under Scottish law. The definition of rape, set out in 1844, states that it is an offence that can only be carried out by a man against a woman. While the English legal system has recognised male rape for seven years, in Scotland the offence has to be classed as "indecent assault" or as "sodomy."

According to a recent research cited by The Scotsman, it suggests that at least 400 adult men are sexually assaulted in Scotland each year but campaigners believe the figure is a huge underestimate because victims are often reluctant to report their ordeal to the police.

In England and Wales, the British Crime Survey which records sexual assaults on men revealed that just under 4,100 incidents were reported, about half the victims are thought to be homosexual.

Professor Lynn Jamieson, a sexual offences expert at Edinburgh University's school of social and political studies told the paper that many male rapes are committed by friends and acquaintances of the victim, often in groups, where an individual is picked on and the situation gets out of hand.

Other cases involve "gay bashing", in which men who consider themselves straight rape gay men apparently in order to humiliate them, she added.