London - A baseball bat-wielding prankster got more than he bargained for when his ‘killer clown’ stunt left him with a bloody nose.
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Ashley Symes, 23, dressed as a clown to cash in on the internet craze of jumping out at unsuspecting people and posting the videos on YouTube.
Donning creepy clown make-up and a red wig, he is seen in the two-and-a-half minute film holding a bat and hiding behind walls in a bid to scare people.
However, Symes was left with a bloody nose when one of his startled targets punched him in the face.
The man filming the incident ran towards the two men, yelling: ‘It’s a prank, it’s just a prank!’
undefinedSymes, from Sittingbourne, Kent, says on the video: ‘Me and my friend had watched a few American prank videos, and thought we would do one here. I thought I would jump on the hype. I’m waiting for it to get dark. People are going crazy being scared of clowns so fingers crossed it goes well.’
Most of his victims run off but there are scenes where one woman can be heard shouting ‘Oh my God’ before getting into a car and driving away.
But when he went into an underground car park of the Dockside Outlet Centre in Cheltenham, the prank backfired spectacularly when his startled victim punched him in the nose.
Symes’s video, entitled ‘Killer clown prank in the UK! Gone wrong!’ has been watched almost 130 000 times since it was posted on YouTube on Monday.
The video generated a lot of criticism.
Comments included: ‘You don’t need to dress like a clown to be a clown. Pack it in. One day someone will end up in hospital. Grow up.’
One person wrote: ‘I wonder how funny they would find it if they caused someone to have a heart attack?’
Another said: ‘Fair play. One of the better ones of these videos because you get what you deserve.’
Symes said: ‘A lot of people I scared said it was funny, even the man that punched me said it was funny. The guy who hit me felt bad - he just didn’t realise it was a prank.’
He added: ‘If it’s done well, in a controlled, way it’s harmless. We try to let the people know what is going on.’
Daily Mail