Troubles seem to be never-ending for England’s star all-rounder Ben Stokes. After his street brawl video went viral, now Stokes has found himself in an even graver controversy. Stokes had made a Snapchat video which is now going viral and is believed to have been recorded before England vs New Zealand ICC Champions Trophy 2017 fixture. In the video, he can be seen with his friend in a drunken state and tried to troll English television personality Katie Price’s autistic son, Harvey, over his accent. In the video, he asks with an accent resembling that of Harvey’s mother, “Harvey, what do you say when people are being mean?”. It is followed by a reply in Harvey’s accent, “Hello, you c***’ after which the cricketer bursts into laughter.
The 15-year-old is a blind and autistic child who responded by shouting ‘c***’ when asked to give reaction to bullies. According to The Sun, the video was recorded on June 6 but has been circulating on messaging application WhatsApp.
Stokes had been dropped from England’s squad for Ashes 2017-18 after his street brawl video went viral and will not be available for selection until further notice.
Here’s the video of Stokes’ unacceptable trolling of the autistic child –
Katie Price’s reaction-
A friend of Price’s said,
Katie only became aware of this video this afternoon when it appeared online, but she’s very upset by it. She is extremely protective of Harvey, as any mother would be, and has always made it clear that she finds any jokes about him totally unacceptable. She’s got no idea who Ben Stokes is, and she’s never met him, so it’s outrageous that he would want to ridicule her son like this. He doesn’t deserve this, and especially not from a man who is in the public eye who should be setting an example to other people.
Piers Morgan defends Stokes street brawl
Piers Morgan took to Twitter and said that Stokes was not at fault. He said,
BREAKING:
I’m hearing that Ben Stokes intervened to help two gay guys who were being abused by yobs, one of whom was armed with a bottle.— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
2/ Stokes has told friends he was incensed by the homophobic taunts, then saw the bottle being raised & decided to defend himself.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
3) Stokes obviously regrets what happened but apparently his view is: ‘They started it, I finished it. I was protecting those guys.’
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
4/ Police are aware of Stokes’ version of events & are now trying to find the two gay men, to corroborate what he’s said.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
5/ Stokes has told friends: ‘The guy had a bottle in his hand & was threatening us, was I supposed to wait until he smashed it in my face?’
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 28, 2017
Stokes was already in deep trouble over the street brawl and now the video of him trolling the autistic child will only strengthen the backlash against the English all-rounder. As the vice-captain of a national cricket team, many have opined that Stokes should understand that he was a role model for people and not someone who the majority despises.
