A man has described how he nearly died when a gang threw him to the ground and stamped on his face during the third homophobic attack he has suffered this year.

Ryan Turner was left with severe bruising, a burst lip, black eyes and a swollen face after a group of seven men ambushed him after telling him: “Gays should die.”

He was walking home at 6.30am after a night out in Preston, Lancashire, when the group came and shoved him to the ground and attacked him. He was knocked unconscious.

“When I woke up in hospital, the doctors told me I could have died,” Mr Turner, 22, a hotel receptionist, said.

Police are treating the incident as a hate crime. No one has been