A MAN was left needing skin grafts after thugs set him on fire in a homophobic attack.

The 20-year-old man was attacked at 3am on Tuesday morning as he walked through the grounds of Holy Trinity Church on Yarm Lane in Stockton - an area known locally as “The Chuggy”.

A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said: “A group of four men confronted him and began questioning the victim about his sexual orientation.

“He ignored them and continued on to Parliament Street.

“One of the men then approached him from behind and sprayed an aerosol can at the victim’s legs which he then set alight, causing burns to the victim’s calves.”

The victim was treated for burns at North Tees University Hospital in Stockton, and then discharged, but will have to return to have skin grafts.

The attackers made off towards Yarm Lane. 

The man who lit the aerosol is described as white, in his early 20s, medium build, with short blonde hair. He was bare-chested and wearing jogging bottoms.

Cleveland Police is treating the incident as a homophobic hate crime.

Sarah Lewis, of Teesside LGBT support charity Hart Gables, said hate crime was often under-reported - but that she believed physical attacks like this were uncommon in the Teesside area.

“Hate crime is a problem, and the main problem is that it is under-reported,” she said.

“It is not often that we see instances like this physical attack, but we do see a huge amount of verbal abuse on social media, a lot of homophobia but in particular transphobia.

“The people who did this crime probably started out with verbal abuse, and this has escalated which is why verbal and online abuse needs to be taken seriously and tackled at its source. People sometimes don’t realise it is a crime because it isn’t physical – but it’s important to report it.

“We have definitely seen an increase in transphobia in particular, possibly because the community is more visible now and it it still quite taboo.

“At the moment there is a lot of hate around - from the Orlando shootings, to the hate crime from the fall out of the EU referendum - and any minority group feels more vulnerable in times like these.”

Anyone who might have information about the attack is asked to contact Cleveland Police on the non-emergency number 101.