YouTube Star Calum McSwiggan Chooses Spain Over Fake Police Report Court Appearance
British YouTube personality Calum McSwiggan failed to turn up for a court appearance in regards to the alleged fake police report he filed in June, according to We The Unicorns. The 26-year-old, who made headlines last month after supposedly being beaten by two men at The Abbey, a popular West Hollywood gay bar, was set to face a judge on Tuesday at the Los Angeles International Airport Courthouse for a preliminary court hearing. However, he was “unable to attend” due to him currently being on a family “holiday” — a colloquial term used in the U.K. for an extended vacation — in Spain.
As reported by the Inquisitr, following an appearance at VidCon on June 27, McSwiggan, along with several other YouTubers, stopped by The Abbey to celebrate the end of the viral celebrity conference. Calum would then go to claim that after leaving the club with two other gentlemen that he met that night, he was brutally gay bashed by them and admitted to a hospital to be treated for several injuries, including three broken teeth and a bruised collar bone.
Following an Instagram post from McSwiggan that showed him battered and bruised while laying in a hospital bed, officials from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released a mugshot that displayed a visibly uninjured McSwiggan, and expressed that he had actually been arrested for vandalizing vehicles near the club. His cuts and bruises, according to a spokesperson from the department, had been self-inflicted during his temporary jail stay.
Calum would go on to state that he did indeed injure himself, but only after his arresting officers refused to take him to a hospital to be examined for the injuries that came from the supposed attack.
“In a moment of desperation to get out of the cell, I took the pay phone off the wall and hit myself once across the forehead with it as hard as I could,” McSwiggan expressed in a lengthy Facebook post. “I knew I had to injure myself to get out of the cell and into a hospital, and it was the only solution I could find to get myself out of there. This is incredibly out of character for me and is testament to how upset I was in that moment. I do not regret doing this as I could still be in the jail cell if I didn’t.”
Interestingly, Calum has made no mention of the event since it occurred, but he has been updating his social media feeds almost daily, including on the day of his scheduled court appearance. In a shot that was shared on Twitter on July 19, McSwiggan can be seen relaxing by a pool somewhere in the European city.
Obligatory here's a picture of my legs by the pool picture ?? pic.twitter.com/I5J9DCwZ8d
— Calum McSwiggan (@CalumMcSwiggan) July 19, 2016
He is also seemingly all healed from his facial injuries, as displayed in two selfies that were posted on both July 17 and July 19, the day of the aforementioned hearing.
My face tastes like bacon ? pic.twitter.com/bklpb4mOIR
— Calum McSwiggan (@CalumMcSwiggan) July 17, 2016
One of my favourite places in the world ? pic.twitter.com/YW4cXPlZCJ
— Calum McSwiggan (@CalumMcSwiggan) July 19, 2016
Following Tuesday’s court session, Commissioner Jane Godfrey ordered that Calum must appear at the pre-trial hearing for the ongoing case on September 26. If found guilty, he could be convicted upwards to a year in prison. He has entered a plea of “not guilty” in regards to the fake police report, and has been backed up by two of his friends who accompanied him that night to The Abbey: fellow gay YouTube star Riyadh Khalaf (who has interestingly removed all mentions of the the night in question — as well as mentions of McSwiggan himself — from his social media accounts), and Melanie Murphy, who implored her fans not to jump to conclusions about Calum without all of the facts.
“[Calum] has been accused of making this up, which makes absolutely zero sense and is a disgrace,” she expressed in a Facebook post of her own in late June. “victim blaming is a huge problem. Anyone who knows [McSwiggan] knows how sweet and quiet and loyal and trustworthy a person he is. I’d trust him with my life and I believe him 100 [percent].”
[Photo by Calum McSwiggan/Facebook]
