Female students are being injected now with date rape drugs in nightclubs

[GoWalkabout]

I won't post the Facebook post I saw because its on a forum but apparently there have been several reported incidents of students in Exeter nightclubs being injected in the back (not by people they are with) while out. The newspapers really need to get on this story and nightclubs who are reportedly batting back complaints saying that the women are just drunk need to deal with this criminality on their premises. We are not prey.

I hope your niece is ok! It's just so shocking!
I've been to see my friend today (whose daughter it happened to) and she told me that her daughter is ok.. the mum seems worse as she is so upset!
It's upset me today all these commenters that won't believe it so it's been helpful to read the #webelieveyou
My friends daughter wasn't believed by nightclub staff.. they threw her out saying she was drunk (she'd had just a few) even though her boyfriend was with her and knew it wasn't right. Her arms and legs went really floppy like she couldn't move them properly or stand on her own.

The hospital staff treated her as if she was just drunk or had taken drugs even though she told them she hadn't.
It was only when she returned to the hospital two days later after finding a suspected injection site in her arm that the doctors confirmed it and tested her. She is a medical student, they seemed to give her more respect when they knew this but it's just totally wrong that no one believed her before!

This injection thing IS happening no matter what the non believers say! The police are being great and speaking to her & her boyfriend.. let's hope they do catch whoever is doing this!

Sounds like the ring is to identify which collapsed girls are drugged and unlikely to put up a fight, and which are just drunk and may come too quicker.

I was at at a nightclub in Glasgow known as Clatty Pats in 1987 when a guy stuck a needle in me.

To be honest I thought it was just something jaggy I’d bumped against and then he did it again. It hurt. When I looked at him he showed me drugs under his jacket and asked if I wanted any. I said no and walked away. I later told the police.

I wasn’t drugged so that’s not this, but I had to get aids and hep tests. I was terrified. I told my work mates and they wouldn’t sit near me, touch a cup I had touched, made me feel like a leper. Aids was new then and scary. I tested negative. I’ve only ever told a couple of people since.

So if it happened then I’m pretty sure it can happen now. And much worse things happen now so im inclined to believe it.

If they used instagel that could numb the injection site? If the girls were like me they’d probably think they’d just bumped into something jaggy. And not think too much of it. I didn’t the first time. Why would I. I wasn’t even drunk and didn’t use drugs.

Scary times we live in. Scarier because of copycat crimes too.

@Councilworker

The most common rape drug is alcohol. It's cheap, it's available everywhere, you don't have to contact drug dealers to get it, , you can pretend you're just being social with the victim and you don't have to do around with a hypodermic needle in your pocket and then follow your victim for 20 minues. As a teenage girl away from home for the first time, in clubs for the first time ever possibly due to lockdowns it's very easy to underestimate the effects on you. I speak as someone who was raped as a student in my own bed after drinking "a couple of drinks" with my flat mates and the boys from the flats down stairs. Which were incredibly strong measures and actually I was probably drinking more than I thought. The kind student from downstairs who helped me to my room and "stayed in case I was sick" actually raped me while I was passed out drunk. I was then talked about by other people in my building for weeks. I then found out I had for Chlamydia from him so had to get treatment and also have HIV tests

For most women and girls the danger is not the lurking man in the alley way or the stranger in a nightclub with a syringe of drugs and a getaway car. It's that nice bloke you chatting to at the fresher's drinks or that lad who lives next door who helps you home on the bus.
If, and its a big if, there is some massive co-ordinated rape attempts with fast acting injectable sedatives then that is scary for the women who have experienced it. But this week and every week there will be drunk young women being raped by their male friends. Let's not forget that threat which is far more mundane but far more likely.

Exactly; well said.

So sorry that happened to you.

"Sounds like the ring is to identify which collapsed girls are drugged and unlikely to put up a fight, and which are just drunk and may come too quicker."

It's a good thing that one of the enterprise were then outside shouting the catchphrase from the ring to identify themselves as the perpetrator when they would have otherwise gone undetected

Here's the thing, depressingly I can believe that girls are being stabbed with needles as a way to scare and intimidate them. I can't believe that organised gangs are using numbing wipes before drugging girls by means of injection, sticking jewellery on them in order to identify their victims, then letting them almost get away with their friends before trying to intervene in order steal them away, in the process making sure lots of witnesses see them.

That sounds more like a film plot, one that requires a lot of suspended disbelief.

Sadly this seems like a real thing ,unless peoples friends /nieces are all in the habit of lying! A young lady on BBC Breakfast TV this morning was recounting an unpleasant experience where she had been injected .This was followed by a statement from the police as well! Surely awareness is a good thing? Girls being made aware of possible risks .

mol.im/a/10107543reported here too, sorry its the daily mail!

Oops! mol.im/a/10107543

This is horrendous and extremely worrying. A friend of mine was drugged (via her drink) when we were teenagers. Luckily she was the driver so it was obvious fairly quickly that something untoward was happening. We managed to get her home in a taxi and her parents took her to get checked out. We never accepted drinks from strangers or left our drinks alone after that.

Sadly this seems like a real thing ,unless peoples friends /nieces are all in the habit of lying!

I've had people tell me face to face that well known urban myths happened to them or friends of theirs, and when I pointed out they were (well documented) urban myths, I was either told "well it might be, but it definitely happened in this case" ot "so and so wouldn't lie, are you accusing them of lying?".

@deydododatdodontdeydo

Sadly this seems like a real thing ,unless peoples friends /nieces are all in the habit of lying!

I've had people tell me face to face that well known urban myths happened to them or friends of theirs, and when I pointed out they were (well documented) urban myths, I was either told "well it might be, but it definitely happened in this case" ot "so and so wouldn't lie, are you accusing them of lying?".

Same… I’ve had 2 people swear blind the ‘raped on stage at a stag do in Amsterdam’ story happened on a stag their friend went on, and another friend claimed her cousin’s wedding was postponed when the Beckhams wanted the venue on that so paid the cousin thousands of pounds to move it to another date

Obviously both total urban myths but the storytellers were adamant it was true

Snopes has a variation of this story from America from 2010, which has been debunked as a myth

www.snopes.com/fact-check/crime-ring/

Key components are the same - injected drug to knock someone out, who just manages to get themselves somewhere safe (the toilet cubicle!) before passing out, and shadowy criminals lurking nearby to snatch the victim…

Copied from MN Believe Me statement:
MYTH: Women often lie about rape, and police officers and jurors should bear this in mind

REALITY: There is no research evidence that false allegations are more common than for many other crimes.

Home Office research indicates that between 3-8% of initial allegations are false, but that the lower figure is likely to be most accurate.(6)

Far from being widespread, malicious accusations are rare. A much greater problem in the criminal justice system is the under-reporting of rape - the government estimates that 89% of rapes are never reported to the police at all.(7)

In addition, only 5.3% of rapes reported to the police end in a conviction for rape - the lowest rate of any country in Europe, except for Ireland.(8)

Shocked, even horrified at some of the comments on this thread and the dismissal of people’s accounts. Young women are coming forward and this is what they get, disbelief and ridicule, no wonder so many don’t go to the police to report stuff. We don’t know the facts, and if there are falsehoods that’s for the police to find out and not for us to pre judge in such a dismissive way.

There is all the difference in the world between disbelieving an individual victim and blindly accepting the implausible. Great harm can be done by blind acceptance and, for anyone who doubts this, I have two words for you: Carl Beech.

So you know it’s implausible and you are judge and jury now - my point is if when people say something has happened to them, we should believe them. Take statements, eye witness reports, collect evidence that can either support their claim or prove it to be false. People will continue to shy away from reporting or expressing what has happened to them if they fear they will be disbelieved and ridiculed. It is not for us to judge .

"my point is if when people say something has happened to them, we should believe them. "

But for the most part it's not people saying it happened to them, barring the women in the mail story giving a direct account it's people saying something has happened to someone else they know or know of and one of those accounts has a load of red flags regarding the presented facts.

And from the limited direct accounts we're then being asked to accept that this is a nationwide phenomenon and that to not accept is akin to silencing victims when they speak out.

It's chalk and cheese.

@Pam1962

So you know it’s implausible and you are judge and jury now - my point is if when people say something has happened to them, we should believe them. Take statements, eye witness reports, collect evidence that can either support their claim or prove it to be false. People will continue to shy away from reporting or expressing what has happened to them if they fear they will be disbelieved and ridiculed. It is not for us to judge .

What do you think you are actually achieving here? What do you think will happen, if this turns out to be an urban myth? It will be yet another reason to disregard women and label us as hysterical. It's another convenient bogeyman that allows us to ignore the real risks to women.

when people say something has happened to them, we should believe them Including Carl Beech?

There’s a huge difference between believing first person accounts (which is important) and vague secondhand stories posted anonymously. Everything expressing disbelief on this thread is of the latter.

Well, one person does the injecting and an accomplice waits outside for a staggering; dazed person. And the ring is the identifying mark.
If I were a criminal labelling a victim for an accomplice to pick up, why would I bother getting a ring made with writing on it? I would instead use one with a very bright colour that the accomplice could pick out in the poor light.

And why would that accomplice make a scene "cry baby, cry baby" when friends/ambulance are taking the would-be victim away? The accomplice might pretend to offer help or something but shouting abuse? Why would they want to attract attention to themselves.

I'm not going to dismiss this out of hand, but nor am I going to accept it without question. The truth (as always) is probably somewhere in between.

• Spiking drinks is well known.
• It's probable that men have been pricking women with sharps for kicks - there are men who enjoy making women uncomfortable and here they are terrifying thousands in one go.

But a nationwide epidemic of injecting sedatives springing up overnight? No, that's a bit far-fetched. Some elements of this will be true. Other elements are embellishments in the retelling.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58983853
BBC reporting that the Home Secretary has asked police to report to her on this

Good glad it's being treated seriously. My niece has had it confirmed by a doctor that it's a needle mark and is now having to get injections for the next few months incase of hep b etc

This was also discussed on woman’s hour this morning. Young women are wearing denim jackets to protect themselves. But he, it’s an urban myth.

But most of us are saying the same thing! That women saying that men are intimidating them with needle attacks are telling the truth, and that these are a new wave of a known phenomenon that has longterm impacts such as having to be tested for HIV and hepatitis.

It's just not convincing that these needle attacks are to inject rape drugs and that mysterious rings and trafficking women are involved. These sound like myths, which remove the focus from violent, fetishistic men.