A former B.C. student is getting attention around the world after confronting a stranger who assaulted her as she walked down a U.K. sidewalk.
The confrontation began after a stranger approached Azmina, a former student at the University of British Columbia who now lives in London, while she was walking down a sidewalk with her boyfriend.
"He wanted to go and grab my crotch but he swung his arm quite hard and ended up punching it," said Azmina, who told CTV News she wanted to be identified by first name only.
"He violated me. He humiliated me. And then he walked off like he didn't have a care in the world."
So she followed him, yelling at him to stop, and telling him that he had just sexually assaulted her, she said. She said he swore at her, and threatened to fight her boyfriend.
"He turned to me and told me to leave him alone, at which point I flipped out and I said, 'You have some nerve telling me to leave you alone,'" Azmina said.
She tried calling the police, but said the number kept going to voicemail. She said she realized later that she should have called 999, the U.K. equivalent of 911.
Still, the threat was enough to convince the man to apologize to her on camera.
In the 28-second video, Azmina stands off-camera, holding the phone. She is heard addressing a man on the sidewalk, asking him to call her by name.
"Azmina, what I've done was totally unacceptable," he says.
"You are a very beautiful woman that I found attractive, but doing that was totally wrong on every level. And I really am sorry."
"Doing what?" Azmina asks.
"Punching you in the crotch. I really am sorry," he replies.
She posted the cellphone video on her own Facebook page, where it has been viewed more than 120,000 times and shared 888 times.
Azmina said she posted the video because she wanted to "show the world that sexual harassment is never okay.”
She said she wanted the man in the video and others to realize that there will be consequences, and that they should think before they act.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's St. John Alexander
