The truth about drug-facilitated rape: ‘When I woke up my body felt battered’

A magistrate and HR executive in her late 50s, settled, single, not dating or sexually active, Jo felt that her risk of becoming a victim of rape had passed, or was certainly low – and that drug-facilitated rape in particular was something that happened to young people, in clubs, at parties, "on the apps". When it happened to her two years ago, it was her adult son who had to make sense of it, and explain why she'd woken up naked beside a man she had no feelings for, blood on the bed, pain between her legs, her memory of that night a blank space.

Her rapist was someone she had known since secondary school, a former classmate who, until that week in November 2022, she hadn't seen since their final A-level. At some point, he had emigrated and then connected with Jo (not her real name) through Friends Reunited. They messaged once a year around their birthdays, which were close together. That was the only contact they had until he got in touch to say he was back visiting family, and how about a coffee?

It was strange from the start. Jo expected nothing more than a friendly catch-up. He was married with teenage children. Jo was long divorced. They realised that one of their favourite bands was playing locally in a week's time, so they booked tickets together. Then, that first day, quite out of the blue, he told Jo that he loved her, had always loved her and wanted to find a way to be together.

"I was taken aback," says Jo, "maybe a bit flattered, bowled over. I'd never once thought of him that way. I went home and as the days passed, he kept messaging me, getting so full-on and a bit stalkerish, as if he was desperate to see me. I was trying to be polite and I agreed to meet him again to put him straight. I made it clear that I didn't feel the same. The truth was that I wasn't attracted to him – and he was married. I had been single and content for years, and I'd never consider getting involved with a married man."

They still had the concert, though, so Jo went along, hoping they could part without any hard feelings. "After the gig, we walked into a pub, he bought us drinks and I have no recollection beyond that." Her next memory is coming briefly to consciousness in her own bed; he was there too with his fingers inside her. "Then I woke the next morning, my head was banging so hard it was unbelievable and my body felt battered. He was lying next to me with no clothes on. I just couldn't work out how we ended up there."

It is hard to build a solid picture of drug-facilitated rape – who does it, how, where, why, how often? There are too many gaps and so much guesswork. The body of research is still small and reliable data virtually impossible to collect. A national survey by Stamp Out Spiking suggests that 97% of spiking victims don't report it , because they didn't realise until too late, felt there wasn't enough evidence and didn't expect to be believed. Then there are women who won't know that they are victims – there are examples, especially in marriages, of women being unaware it is happening over a period of years. On certain forums – such as Women's Aid and Reddit – women can be found airing their suspicions that they've been drugged and raped by their husbands, and listing the warning signs they missed: "forgetfulness", "clumsiness", "intermittent, unexplained pain and discomfort", "feeling like you have done a marathon in your sleep". The most recently available data on this from the 2020 Crime Survey for England and Wales found that 5% of rape victims suspected they had been drugged by the perpetrator, and this rose to 14% in cases where the attacker was a stranger.

From time to time, cases emerge that bring the issue into focus. More than 60 women have alleged that Bill Cosby drugged and raped or sexually assaulted them , a pattern of abuse said to have spanned most of his career as one of the US's best-loved comics. (He has always denied the allegations.) In Manchester, police believe, from video footage on his phone, that the PhD student Reynhard Sinaga drugged, raped or sexually assaulted more than 190 men between 2015 and 2017. Most of his victims were untraceable but Sinaga is now serving a minimum of 40 years for 159 counts of sexual offences against 48 men.

In France, Gisèle Pelicot, now a feminist hero, recently waived her anonymity in order to put drug-facilitated rape back in the spotlight. For more than a decade, the husband she loved and trusted was spiking her food and drink with anti-anxiety medication to render her unconscious, first raping her and allowing strangers to watch online, then inviting them to participate. Dozens of men, most within a 60km radius of their small town in south-eastern France, are said to have accepted Dominique Pelicot's offer while he filmed them, later filing the 20,000 photographs and videos he took neatly away in a folder on his computer called "abuse".

Has the case generated a deeper understanding of how and why? In court, it was heard that psychologists found "no salient personality traits" in Dominique Pelicot; he does not suffer any "mental pathology or abnormality" and has a "correct relationship with reality". His use of pornography and search terms such as "asleep porn" were highlighted, marking his tendency towards paraphilia and somnophilia (sexual interest in someone who is unconscious). Psychologists have linked somnophilia and the steep rise in pornography categories such as "unconscious" as the most logical extension of the internet porn explosion. Somnophilia, like online porn, is a one-way activity with no need to perform or please a partner who becomes an object, a receptacle with no reality or subjectivity to navigate.

Whatever the role of online porn in the Pelicot case, drug-facilitated rape predates the internet by centuries. The medieval legal historian Gwen Seabourne highlights a case from 1292 in the south-west of England where a woman suffering from leg pain consulted her doctor, who administered a drink that incapacitated her, then raped her. In her sweeping history, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, Gail Collins links women's growing independence in the late 1800s with the increasing use of drugs to control their sexuality. One doctor's records show that he visited a household two or three times a week in order to put a woman under anaesthetic so her husband could "have sex" with her. "Throughout history, we see the use of drugs to facilitate unwanted sexual attacks," says Joanna Bourke, a British historian and the author of Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present. "In 19th-century Britain, drug-facilitated rape was a major concern, in the context of two drugs in particular – alcohol, much of which was adulterated so it was not clear how strong a drink was, and chloroform, which was a new drug, unregulated and widely available." Bourke believes that drug-facilitated rape can only be understood through the deeply embedded "rape myths" and male entitlement that have existed through history. "One of these is that 'some kinds of sexual violence are not really damaging'," she says, "the belief that, 'She's unconscious, she won't feel it, she won't remember it, so it's not that bad and not really going to harm her.' Linked to this is the idea that if she's not fighting back, it's not really rape – and screaming and hitting isn't enough. There have to be wounds."

This is a clear feature of the Pelicot case, with many of the defendants insisting that they are not rapists. (One expressed his belief that rape was something that "happens in the street" in the style of, "If you don't want it, I'll hit you.") A psychologist told how Dominique Pelicot had trouble accepting the harm he had done, instead complaining that the trial had "destroyed his life", and that if he hadn't been arrested, "I would still be happy, and she too – everything would have continued the same way."

In another case, in Indianapolis in 2014, a man called David Wise who had drugged and sexually assaulted his wife for three years was sentenced to eight years of GPS-monitored home confinement, with the ability to leave for work and no required therapy. The judge told his former wife that she needed to forgive her ex-husband.

Prosecuting drug-facilitated rape is rare and difficult. In many cases, including that of Sinaga and the Pelicot trial, it is only uncovered due to chance discoveries of video footage. Gisèle Pelicot knew something was very wrong; she suffered weight loss, hair loss, problems with her memory, unexplained gynaecological problems and difficulty moving her arm, but who would have imagined why? (Her husband dutifully drove her to medical appointments to get to the bottom of it.) Last year, Steven Evans from Greater Manchester was convicted of 37 offences, mostly sexual assault, against four women, after rendering them unconscious with a substance he called "magic". Again, this only came to light when one of his victims found videos on his old phone. (In the past, when she had complained of waking up with pain in her intimate body parts, he'd laughed at her.)

In Australia, in a case in 2001, a woman only discovered that her husband of 30 years was drugging and raping her when she found the videos taken with a hidden camera in their bedroom. She later told the court that she had feared she had cancer because of a host of mysterious gynaecological problems that required multiple surgeries.

Without video evidence of the acts themselves, or perhaps CCTV footage of the victim completely incapacitated beforehand and unable to consent, or a witness to the substance being administered, these cases can be almost impossible to prosecute, says Nogah Ofer, a solicitor at the Centre for Women's Justice. "Toxicology is the main type of evidence if you give a sample quickly enough," she says, "but some of these drugs can leave your system very quickly." (Some can be picked up seven days later; others can be gone in less than 12 hours.) "By the time you've come round, left wherever you are when you wake, maybe told a friend, worked out what has happened, it can be too late." Even when the drug is identified, depending on what it is, how do you prove you didn't take it recreationally?

What is left is less than "your word against his", because victims have no clear memories, often no memory at all, no account to offer a jury. "It's a crime that people can get away with all the time," says Ofer, "and I'm sure they do."

For Jo, the chances of any kind of justice look slim. "When I woke and realised he was next to me, I had no idea what had happened," she says. "He tried to cuddle me. I can't remember what I said; I just needed to get him out of there. When he left, he said he'd ring me later and asked: 'Can I not even have a kiss?' I felt ashamed, I felt cheap and so confused."

A few days passed before she confided in her son, who urged her to report the rape. Five days after it had happened, Jo gave a statement to the police and had a forensic examination. (She isn't sure if her bloods were tested for drugs but assumes they would have left her system anyway.) The man was arrested and interviewed, and insisted that the sex had been consensual.

"Since then, every step has felt like a battle," Jo says. Police didn't confiscate the suspect's phone or laptop – but Jo had to hand in her own phone, apparently so that police could download the man's messages for evidence. ("I'm the victim. I've barely told anyone, but I had to somehow explain to everyone why I didn't have a phone.") Earlier this year, she learned that the CPS would not be taking her case forward, a decision she is planning to challenge.

"It has affected me in so many ways," she says. "It's like a weight on my shoulders all the time. I haven't told many people and putting up a front is exhausting. My job is very detailed, very pressured, so I've decided to go part-time next year and that's a direct result of what happened. I'm just so tired. I have always been a firm believer in the system, in justice, and this makes me question and doubt everything."

The blank space from that evening is never far from her mind. "I used to be confident and outgoing. I live in a really nice, safe, quiet neighbourhood, but I don't feel safe any more. When I go out, my senses are heightened, I'm looking out for shadows. If I'm anywhere social, I'm on edge, holding on to my drink, but I'm nervous at home, too.

"I wake in the night in my room, in the bed where it happened, and I have this feeling that I don't know what's going on and what is coming next. Flashes of his face, of him being here pop into my head. Some people might think not knowing what happened to you is easier. For me, it isn't – and it's meant the odds are completely stacked in his favour."