YouTuber Claims He Did Not Lie About Antigay Attack

Calum McSwiggan Monday pleaded not guilty to filing a false police report.

The gay British YouTuber was charged June 29 with a misdeameanor count of filing a false report of a crime, in his case an alleged antigay attack. He was also charged with vandalism for allegedly vandalizing the car of those he says attacked him. Officers with the West Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said June 28 that McSwiggan had faked the hate crime. He continues to contend that the attack happened; if convicted of filing a false report, he would face up to a year in jail.

McSwiggan was in Los Angeles attending VidCon, a conference for YouTubers, in June, when he says that he went to the Abbey, a popular gay nightclub in West Hollywood, where he says three men attacked him outside in a parking lot near the club.

Police released a statement saying that they "were unable to substantiate the assault." They claimed McSwiggan "had no visible injuries," and said they arrested him for vandalizing a vehicle.

The night of the alleged attack, McSwiggan posted a selfie of himself from a hospital bed, claiming three of his teeth were broken and that he had six stitches in his forehead. McSwiggan did not tell his followers that he was taken to the hospital by officers after he reportedly injured himself with a pay phone while in custody.

Police said they have surveillance footage of McSwiggan injuring himself in a waiting cell. Many people on the internet were critical of McSwiggan and the possibility that he fabricated a hate crime during Pride Month and only weeks after the attack in Orlando that left 49 people dead.

McSwiggan is scheduled for a pretrial hearing November 7, the BBC reports. The YouTuber ceased posting videos to his account for some time after the alleged attack, but he started uploading videos two weeks ago, celebrating his third anniversary as a YouTuber. "It's been a while," McSwiggan said at the beginning of the video.