The date was going well. Sarah*, 30, had met Tom* on Bumble. They’d been messaging for a few weeks before eventually deciding to meet for some drinks on a Monday evening in Hammersmith. “After my third glass of wine, I remember going to the bathroom and then my mind went blank,” Sarah recalls. “When I came to, I was face down on a bed, feeling a lot of pain, and trying to push Tom off of me, asking him to stop. He replied ‘Just relax,’ and then I passed out again.”
The next thing Sarah can remember is getting out of a taxi and walking to her front door. “I couldn’t stop vomiting, and had a thumping headache, as well as bruises on my inner thighs and hands. There was semen in my underwear.” After estimating the timings of it all, Sarah worked out that she had been at this man’s house for around four hours. “I was in pain for the next three days.”
