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

Gisèle Pelicot waived her anonymity to put drug-facilitated rape in the spotlight, and her experiences of sexual violence have shocked the world. So what else do we know about this most hidden of crimes?

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?