Seven in hospital after Hyde Park crush to see Australian pranksters The Janoskians

 
The Janoskians
Joe Murphy

Seven teenagers were taken to hospital after nearly 2,000 screaming youngsters poured into Hyde Park to glimpse a group of Australian school friends who have become a YouTube sensation.

Police were forced to cut short the “meet and greet” with video pranksters The Janoskians after just 15-minutes when the heaving crowd became unsafe.

One member of the group fainted and another had a panic attack before they were escorted out of the park by police vehicles with flashing blue lights. Hundreds of teenagers, some of whom had travelled hours to meet their heroes, were left in tears of disappointment.

The Janoskians - short for Just Another Name of Silly Kids in Another Nation - are brothers Luke, Jai and Beau Brooks, James Yammouni, and Daniel “Skip” Sahyounie, aged between 17 and 19. They owe their fame entirely to YouTube and Twitter, after their home-made videos of dares and playing pranks on passers-by in their home town near Melbourne went viral.

Speaking to the Evening Standard in their hotel, with a crowd of teenage girls outside, they said they were taken by surprise by the crowds waiting for them on their first trip to Britain.

“As soon as we got off the plane, the papparazzi started swarming us and we thought. ‘whoa, what’s going on’,” said Beau, 19.

James, 17, added: “I asked what was going on and they said there are about 2,000 girls outside. We begged to go see them but they told it was a security risk, to the fans and to other travellers.

“We can see the crowd outside the hotel but the hotel management won’t let us go down to see them.”

James revealed the group have just been signed up by hit rapper Jay Sean and his management team.

“Jay likes to watch funny videos and he came across us,” he said. “He’s a big artist but he’s also going to mentor us. If there is something stressing us out he’s been there already.”

The boys also have plans for a second single after their first, Set This World On Fire, was a in Australia.

Their videos, compared with a junior Jackass, have been attacked by critics as irresponsible. In one they pretend to drop a baby over a bridge, and on another annoyed passengers on a train to film the reaction.

They say the key to success is being fearless. “Jai went up to this bodybuilder and sprayed Lynx over him,” said Beau proudly. “If you don’t get hit for doing that, you won’t get hit for anything.”

Luke added: “You have to be 100 per cent positive when you are filming because if you have any doubt at all, the video won’t come off.”

“It’s like driving,” said James, “If you’re scared you’ll have an accident but if you’re confident you won't.”

The group say they are more interested in having fun than planning careers but Beau said: “You can’t go down from having 500,000 followers on Twitter to going back to university. We definitely want to stay in the industry.”

Some of their fans were disenchanted after being lured first to Heathrow and then Hyde Park by Twitter messages promising a chance to meet the group.

Tayler Wood, 15, who came down from Manchester with friend Georgia Statham, 16, said: “We expected to meet them. We certainly didn’t expect so many fans. It wasn’t worth it.

“When the crush started, Luke appeared to be crying and Beau kept saying sorry.”

Jess Bourne, who travelled from Bournemouth with friends Milly Winter and Zara Bangura, did not even get a glimpse. She said: “It ought to have been a proper event with railings and security.” But Zara said: “I got to see James - it was amazing.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “There was a crush and seven teenagers were taken to hospital with very minor injuries. They are all fine now.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in