Chinese swim fans respond to Mack Horton family’s claims of abuse
- Chinese social media users offer mixed response to explosive interview claiming Aussie swimmer’s family lived in ‘state of siege’
- Sun Yang fans had apologised to Horton on social media but some are still happy at his treatment from fellow countrymen
In an extensive interview with The Australian, headlined “Horton torment after poking the dragon”, Horton’s parents Andrew and Cheryl revealed that the family home was broken into, broken glass was placed on the bottom of their pool and dog excrement was hurled over the garden fence.
Other low points included online death threats, nuisance phone calls and pans being banged outside the home late into the night, as well as “suspicious vans” parked outside the home.
“For nearly four years the family has lived in a virtual state of siege. Supporters of Sun, most believed to be on student visas, regularly bang pots and pans late at night in the alley behind the back fence and abused the family from the driveway,” The Australian reported.
“Plants have been poisoned, dog s*** hurled over the fence, and a man speaking broken English calls Andrew Horton regularly to threaten his daughter (he has no daughter). Last year, after South Korea, Cheryl was cleaning the family pool when she discovered “a bucket load of broken glass at the bottom.”