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Original poster

To expect to be tested after having my drink spiked

83 replies

isaidwhatisaid · 22/11/2022 19:40

Last night I had my drink spiked. I am 100% sure that is what happened. I was in the pub. I had a couple of glasses of Rosè and started feeling like I had 10 tequilas so I went to the toilets where I uncontrollably slouched down on the cubicle floor, went limp and just resigned myself to waiting for my friends to come and find me. At that point I was sure I had been drugged as the effect was getting worse and was a very different feeling from being too drunk (which I wouldn’t have been from a couple of glasses of wine anyway).

Long story short, an ambulance came, I was taken to A&E and after waiting for a few hours was told that they wouldn’t carry out any toxicology tests because that’s up to the police to do. I reported it to the police today at the local station and they told me they don’t have the resources to do drug tests and that A&E should have done it. They have logged the crime and will review the pub’s cctv evidence but it’s unlikely that any drug will be picked up in my system now, even if I manage to get a blood and urine test tomorrow. I also spoke with a paramedic today via 111 referral who informed me that I should make a complaint about A&E and I spoke to my GP who said that I should make a complaint about the police.

Has anyone else been in this situation and know who is responsible for testing? I have been trying to find an answer all day and the closet I could find was an FOI release by the Met Police that states that they should use a Forensic Medical Examiner to carry out tests. I’ll get back onto the police tomorrow but I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere and I want to do everything I can to stop this person from doing it to anyone else.

OP posts:
PicturesOfDogs · 24/11/2022 19:12

MaryMcCarthy · 24/11/2022 15:06

Sorry to be glib but if you want crimes like this to be routinely investigated you'll need to vote for a government that isn't ideologically determined to cut the public sector. There just aren't the resources.

It’s not that they don’t have the resources, they just don’t have the inclination.
The same is true for all the parties, our society just doesn’t give a shit about sexual offences unfortunately.

Ponesta · 24/11/2022 19:20

I haven't read the full thread but when my drink was spiked I went to the police the next morning and they took a urine sample which was tested, and also followed up on the information my friend and I gave. Sadly although there was cctv they didn't find them.

Darkstar4855 · 24/11/2022 19:25

Stressfordays · 22/11/2022 20:22

We were also told to refuse to take bloods for the police in driving under the influence cases. It had to be their nurses and when we were done with the patient. I never understood why when I was already drawing blood.

Show quote history

It has to be done by the police nurse or doctor so it meets chain of custody requirements. If they used the sample you took then it would be thrown out of court on the grounds that you couldn’t guarantee it was the same person’s sample.

Qazwsxefv · 24/11/2022 21:23

@PicturesOfDogs for normal clinical work of course medical staff can be trusted to do them correctly - I am able to dip a patients urine and see what lines light up quite easily. We have drugs tests where I work that test for opiates, cocaine etc. For a clinical test we trust the patient to give us their own urine, we label the pot with a biro, and and scribble the initials on the test cassette (looks kinda like a covid test) and then leave it in the sluice for the time it needs to develop. We then look at the lines and make our own judgment if positive or not (and it’s not always clear as the 1000+ posts on here asking if there preg test is postive or not show). We then bin it. If I then had to go to court I could not guarantee that the sample was the patients (unless I watched them wee) or that no one had messed up the labelling or tampered with it as it sat on the side and if pushed I may not be even sure of how I read it and the only evidence would be my memory! Any decent lawyer would be able to destroy this in court and let the arsehole get off, if evidence needs collecting it needs collecting properly by someone who knows what to do to ensure a conviction sticks.

MollyQueenOfSocks · 24/11/2022 21:31

Anti-Spiking drugs testing has only really properly started out this year in our area. Before it was never really done.

healthwatchnorfolk.co.uk/news/anti-drink-spiking-campaign-increased/

The scheme means that people who think they have been spiked can get a sample ASAP after them or their friends suspect they have been spiked (swab or urine) which gives the best chance of detecting drugs which are often out of your system within a few hours. It's something they are very interested in rolling our nationally.

PicturesOfDogs · 24/11/2022 21:32

Qazwsxefv · 24/11/2022 21:23

@PicturesOfDogs for normal clinical work of course medical staff can be trusted to do them correctly - I am able to dip a patients urine and see what lines light up quite easily. We have drugs tests where I work that test for opiates, cocaine etc. For a clinical test we trust the patient to give us their own urine, we label the pot with a biro, and and scribble the initials on the test cassette (looks kinda like a covid test) and then leave it in the sluice for the time it needs to develop. We then look at the lines and make our own judgment if positive or not (and it’s not always clear as the 1000+ posts on here asking if there preg test is postive or not show). We then bin it. If I then had to go to court I could not guarantee that the sample was the patients (unless I watched them wee) or that no one had messed up the labelling or tampered with it as it sat on the side and if pushed I may not be even sure of how I read it and the only evidence would be my memory! Any decent lawyer would be able to destroy this in court and let the arsehole get off, if evidence needs collecting it needs collecting properly by someone who knows what to do to ensure a conviction sticks.

I do understand this, I’m not blaming the hospital staff at all, it makes sense.
And I get that it’s not the hospitals job to collect evidence.
But even if A&E could work in conjunction with the police, eg. Someone comes in complaining of being spiked, urine is tested and it comes up positive, then police called to do a proper one.
I do understand lack of funds, but truly believe lack of inclination is the real problem, sexual crimes are just not a priority in this country unfortunately.
Im sure if someone came in with gun/knife wounds the police would be called. I believe sexual assault is just as serious a crime

Original poster
isaidwhatisaid · 24/11/2022 21:33

SleepyRich · 24/11/2022 14:40

"None of the professionals I have spoken with have said that the testing itself wouldn’t make any difference to the prosecution. They have all said I should have been tested. The quibble is ‘by who?"

If testing was common/normal practice then there would be an established plan and pathway for it to occur. Every night, every A&E will see multiple patients who are unwell and that they might have been/were spiked, so it would be a common pathway in use.

People who haven't worked in A&E might expect that this would occur there as they'll be collecting blood for other purposes, but it doesn't for several reasons - chain of evidence, cost, time, benefit among them when they're focus is treating symptoms and getting you well enough to get out the door.

Spiking has been going on for decades, it's not new. The fact as you've discovered no one you've spoken to clearly knows who does do the tests in your area shows that it's just not normal practice. I would suspect most cases aren't even reported to the police at all, the victim just left to get on with it.

To look at it another way, say someone has definitely been spiked, there's no doubt. But fortunately they were taken to A&E before anything else happened to them, they were treated and discharged. The police are now investigating - they need to obtain CCTV footage from all the venues that person attended to identify who spiked the drink, multiple cameras from each venue, trying to track the persons drinks through the night. Think about all the times those drinks will be out of shot or just not covered by a camera. Think about how terrible the quality normally is, especially inside a dark pub/club. We've all seen the pictures on the news of person wanted in connection of serious crime - que blurry shot you can barely make out the colour of the persons clothes let alone their facial features, How many hours would this take of police time to go through all of this though on the off chance they do get some definitive evidence, in the investigation of a crime where ultimately no one was seriously harmed....

Yes it's a serious crime, yes ideally they will be investigated and certainly no one reporting the crime will be told it won't be. But typically all that is going to happen with be to request video from the one venue, ?if they have a shot that covers the area at the time, quick play through and likely nothing uncovered and in x months time you get a notice of case closed/no further investigations.

Out of interest a quick google shows a news article from 'national world' reporting only 37 convictions for drink spiking offences from 2017 to 202o in the UK, that includes all those which involved sexual assault.

The i reports between between 1 January 2018 and 3 November 2021.that out of 15 responding police forces to a FOI request only 44 people were ever charged with offences, 15 people received cautions, no prosecutions noted.
In some cases, the victims also reported being sexually assaulted or raped.

I think lots of police dramas on TV give people an overinflated idea of the level of investigation that goes on behind the scenes. It would certainly fall under the police services remit to gather this evidence though but they'd need investment to do so and it's still only part of the puzzle. I mean if lots of suspects were being found not guilty due to a lack of forensics that's one thing, but I bet it's the identifying the suspect in the first place that's not happening.

My point is that the procedure should be clear. Honestly I think I would rather have been told it’s not normal procedure than to have been pushed pillar to post. Not one professional I spoke with told me that- not the 111 call receiver, the paramedic who called me back in response to my 111 call, the 3 paramedics who helped me the night it happened, my GP, the 101 call receiver, the police in my local station, the police who are investigating or the doctor who saw me in A&E. I spent my whole day following that night, after getting home from A&E at 3am, trying to get tested and find out HOW to get tested as I was told that’s what should be done by every single one of those professionals.

OP posts:
Jijithecat · 24/11/2022 23:07

Oblomov22 · 24/11/2022 13:37

I find this all totally unacceptable. Surely this is a feminist issue. Yes men no doubt are spiked. But I bet more women are.

And the default is to insist that they are a liar? someone who's had loads and loads to drink, even though they haven't, and to insist that they're just a drunk, having drunk a few too many? rather than somebody who has legitimately may have been spiked.

This is an absolute outrage.

You missed the Reynhard Sinaga case then?

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