Busker performance descends into brawl after teen touches equipment

Jason Allan was singing on a high street in Leeds, West Yorkshire, on Saturday June 14 when he claims a teen strummed his guitar.

The 28-year-old then turns the camera filming his performance towards the boy and his pals to deter anyone from doing it again.

However, shocking footage shows one of the brash teens storm over to Jason where the two face off, only for the tracksuit-wearing lad to slap him in the face. The youth's pals surround the busker and pal Brad Ryan, 27, so Jason grabs his attacker's legs and throws him to the floor.

At the end of the clip Jason returns to his microphone and addresses onlookers saying, 'we're just trying to make a living man'.

He posted the clip on TikTok and it has been viewed more than five million times with users praising him for standing up for himself. Jason, from Telford, Shropshire, said: I was just singing and one of them from the group strummed my guitar.

I firmly went up to them and I was like, listen, do not touch my things, I draw the line at that. People can call me names, they can laugh, they can give me looks. That's absolutely fine. I don't mind that. I'm thick-skinned, I've been doing this a long time.

When it comes to physically touching my property that's where I draw the line and I will call that behaviour out. I realised my best line of defence here was going to be recording it because I thought they wouldn't want their faces on camera.

I thought that was it and as you can see in the video, one of them, he comes back and he looks like he has an intent to do something.

I think he felt embarrassed and I think he wanted to win the situation so that's why I pre-emptively walked up to him just to confront him. I honestly thought he was going to grab my guitar or something like that so I just wanted to protect my guitar.

When I approached him I was expecting anything to happen so I put my hands on his arms to stop him from lashing out or anything like that. And then of course he did lash out. Unfortunately Jason said this is not the first time he has been assaulted while busking.

Jason said: I've been doing this for 20 years so I'm used to all sorts of abuse. It's not the first time I've been assaulted, it won't be the last.

But it's really important to me to stand up to bullies. I feel these teenage lads when they're in groups they feel they can intimidate people.

I really like to think that what is happening right now will hopefully make them see that your actions do have consequences and they will think twice before picking on people.

It is really sad, I think there's such a bad stigma against buskers. It's something I've dealt with for years. I think there's this insinuation that because you're a busker you've got to smile and take it.

Of course we've got to accept a certain form of ridicule, I completely understand that. But we're not punching bags. His TikTok has more than 10,000 comments.

One user said: Losing a five vs one to a guy who is just tryna sing. I'd probably wear a mask for the rest of my life. Another commented: You know how embarrassing it is to try to throw a kick but the guy grabs your leg and drops you.

A third said: Mate this is mental. The leg grab was class though. A fourth commented: Well done for standing up for yourself lad.