Drug-rape victims vow to shut down depraved 'online industry'

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She had overdosed on sleeping tablets in an attempt to escape the mental torture brought on by years of coercive control and domestic abuse at the hands of the man she loved, David Rogerson.

Without knowing it, she was the victim of drug-facilitated rape, a sickening crime that continues to be celebrated in secret chat rooms and depraved corners of the dark web, and where anonymised users trade tactics on how to administer substances to facilitate their sexual deviance.

Speaking about the moment she first realised what was happening, Amanda told LBC: “I could feel him slapping me really hard, and it took me a minute to work out what was happening because I couldn't move or speak.

"I'd taken an overdose, and I realised that he was having sex with me, and that was how I discovered what he was doing. It was the most vulnerable, most awful moment of my entire life."

Read more: Dozens of women identified as victims of drug enabled rape after Gisèle Pelicot case

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Having fallen for his charms at a local jive event, Amanda, 53, from Ashton in Makerfield, quickly became the victim of a toxic, abusive relationship that resulted in Rogerson, 56, raping her on a regular basis while she was asleep and under the influence of heavy sleep medication given to her to deal with the mental anguish brought on by the abuse.

“He’d love-bombed me from the start. He literally swept me off my feet”, she said.

“I'd never felt anything like it. I felt seen, completely seen for the first time, and the chemistry was amazing. We were together 24/7 to start with, and I just thought, I've honestly met my soulmate."

But, three months into the relationship, she began to see a different side to him: “Things were happening without me fully knowing what was happening. 

"I'd gone to the doctors anyway because I was being psychologically and emotionally abused, and the doctor put me on antidepressants and sleeping tablets.

“What he was doing was sexually assaulting me as I slept, but I didn't know this; I was just becoming more ill over time.

"I was having horrendous physical Alzheimer's-type symptoms. I was a shell of who I used to be.”

The years of abuse led to Amanda overdosing after a night out.

She said: “I was so ill with it, I just needed to escape for a short while mentally and I ended up taking too many sleeping tablets just to escape his mental torture.

"He came back from his night out and found me on the floor, and I was unconscious.

Speaking about the first time she realised he was raping her, she said: “It took me a minute to work out what was happening because I couldn't move or speak.

"I'd taken an overdose and I realised that he was having sex with me.

“I didn't realise it was rape and I had some kind of breakdown after that. I couldn't speak for months because the trauma was so severe.

"I had a carer come to the house because I was truly ill, but nobody picked up what was actually happening. I was given more sedatives to help me sleep.

“I did confront him in the end, and he laughed and said I was drunk. He didn't even see it as a problem.

"I said to him, obviously you've seen how ill I am, it's really upset me, and I said, don't ever do that again, and he said, 'I promise I won't do that again. I'm sorry'."

Despite that promise, he continued to rape her in her sleep, she said: “I woke up three more times in three years to him doing it, and by this point he was gaslighting me; he used the fact that my memory was bad.

"He used the medication to tell me how mental I was, that I was crazy, and I was imagining things. I was on far too much medication, so I didn't know. So he was, he was driving me more crazy.

“There were times I'd go to bed, and then I'd wake up on a towel. That happened quite often, and he'd say, you put that there before you went to sleep.

"A few times I wore shorts and noticed that they were on the wrong way around. I had unexplained bruises, which I even spoke to him about and said, why am I covered in bruises? And he would give me reasons why, which I couldn't actually remember.

“At the very end, when I did throw him out, he actually said to me, 'Well, you gave me no choice because I had to do it because you weren't always in the mood, so I had to do it when you were asleep'.”

Two years after Amanda reported the attacks, he was charged with five counts of rape, but before the case could ever get to court, he took his own life.

During the police investigation, it became apparent that Rogerson had also filmed his attacks on Amanda.

“I know there was one film of me”, she said. “The police picked it up. They said they couldn't use it in court, which devastated me because it didn't show his face.”

Amanda’s story is not unique.

LBC has found videos on the open web of men having sex with women who appear to be unconscious or sleeping, with references being made to sexual abuse and rape, and investigations have found there is an entire online network of depraved men drugging and raping their partners, filming it and even sharing manuals explaining how to administer stupefying substances to facilitate drug-rape.

“It's horrific”, Amanda told LBC. “Men would search for these hashtags on a regular porn site and there were 20,000 videos of sleep content where they had drugged their wife, the wife was unconscious, and they raped their partner.

"On the video, you could then go off into private chats where they would stream it live.

“Men could give instructions on what to do to the woman, and the men doing it - these are their wives who have no idea, and this is what they're doing.

"They're also selling medication. They're instructing men on what dose to give, how to do it, and what medications to use. It's like a whole industry. Readily available.”

Drawing on the strength shown by Gisele Pelicot – who waived her anonymity after being drugged and raped by her husband and dozens of other men over the course of a decade in France - Amanda and fellow victim, Zoe Hart, have launched a campaign called ‘End Eye Check’ – a reference to the forcing open of a woman’s eyelids when they are unconscious.

“I didn't know that rape could happen while you're unconscious”, she said.

“I didn't know that was a thing apart from Gisele Pelicot. Her story came out while I was going through my investigation, and when it did, something clicked in my mind, and I thought, oh my God, and I suddenly didn't feel alone.

“Some of these women, they have no idea at all, and they only find out when the police contact them and say, 'We have been given video evidence'. That’s the first they know of it.

“I had no idea literally how big it is. It's more than shocked me to the point where I don't know how they're going to even stop this.

“They've got to shut these sites down. This is what is escalating it at the level it is, but they just find clever ways to hide it.”

The National Crime Agency (NCA) says it’s uncovered several global online forums where people have been sharing tips, selling drugs and sending videos of women being raped after being plied with substances.

In the UK, officials say 15 investigative leads into similar cases have been sent to police forces in the past year, which has so far led to eight arrests and eight people being safeguarded.

The NCA has also referred more than 200 leads to international partners, with a senior official describing what’s been uncovered as “a truly global network”.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “Rape and sexual assault are among the most serious crimes, causing profound and lifelong harm to victims and survivors, who show incredible courage in coming forward.

“The Online Safety Act imposes strict duties on firms to take proactive steps to assess and mitigate the risk of their services being used to commit or facilitate criminal offences.

“The safety measures under our codes and associated guidance set clear expectations for how tech firms should meet their legal responsibilities, including to take down illegal content which depicts, facilitates or encourages non-consensual sexual activity.

“We are actively assessing a number of platforms' compliance with these duties and have been working closely with law enforcement agencies to receive intelligence and support our evidence gathering.

“We are determined to act in cases where failings are identified, while also being mindful of the need to protect the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations.”

Meanwhile, a statement from Revenge Porn Helpline reads: "The Revenge Porn Helpline supports victims of all forms of intimate image abuse.

"We are increasingly seeing cases that sit within wider patterns of sexual violence, coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse and reports are emerging of men drugging their partners and going on to sexually assault and abuse them.

"The existence of online spaces where offenders share advice, encourage one another to act and normalise serious sexual offending is common, validating harmful behaviour, reducing perpetrators' sense of accountability and enabling the abuse to spread further.

"Cases involving this type of behaviour are especially troubling for individuals to report because they are often unaware of the full extent of the abuse, which can create significant barriers when seeking support.

"There is an urgent need for stronger protections.

"Platforms must be far more proactive in identifying and removing content that promotes sexual violence or facilitates discussion around offending.

"Law enforcement, regulators and technology companies all have a role to play in ensuring that spaces which encourage abuse are not allowed to operate with impunity.’’