Teen gang-raped on stage in front of hundreds of clubbers

Published: 2013 July 28 08:35:47 (14106 Views)

A teenager has told how she was gang-raped on stage at a holiday hotspot nightclub in front of hundreds of boozed-up revellers.

Barmaid Lauren Walsh was 17 and on her first holiday without her parents when she says a group of British men attacked her during a raucous foam party at a club in Magaluf, Majorca.

Separated from her friends, she was stripped naked, raped and sexually assaulted in the packed nightclub, where the music was too loud for her screams to be heard.

None of the hundreds of clubbers there noticed her distress until it was too late.

Lauren, now 19, was not drunk and had only had a couple of cocktails before switching to water.

She has bravely waived her right to anonymity in the hope that her ordeal acts as a warning to other young women travelling to resorts known for their drink, drugs and debauched sex culture.

She says: "For a while, if I saw a rape storyline on TV I'd crumble and get flashbacks. But that doesn't happen any more. I'm on top of it and I actually think I'm stronger for having to face up to it.

"If I let this affect my whole life and hide away from the world those men would be controlling my life. I couldn't have that."

But Lauren hopes reading about the horror of her attack will put young women on their guard before they go abroad.

She recalls: "I heard the DJ make some joke about girls being welcome up on stage but only if they took their clothes off.

"As I was standing near the stage steps looking for my friends, five or six guys dragged me up and towards the back."

Such was the level of debauchery at the club that Lauren was only rescued when a photographer who worked there realised she was "not enjoying" the ordeal, in August 2011.

Lauren is one of a growing number of young British girls subjected to sex attacks at resorts such as Magaluf, Faliraki in Rhodes and Ayia Napa in Cyprus.

Senior staff were called and Lauren was ushered out of a back door of the club.

No one offered to walk her back to where she was staying, call a cab or phone the police.

She told two of her reps from Thomas Cook what had happened and they took her to a clinic for the morning-after pill.

She says: "They were sympathetic and talked about all the options – reporting the rape to the police, flying me home early, whatever I wanted. Reporting it seemed pointless.

"I couldn't identify any of the guys as they grabbed me from behind and kept me on the ground because I was fighting for all I was worth.

"The reps went to the club to look at CCTV but it only had cameras outside."

When Lauren got home she kept the rape from her family at first because she was afraid of upsetting them but she eventually broke down and told her mum, then her dad.

She says: "One of the hardest things was telling my dad. I expected him to explode but he was devastated. He sat there cuddling me and I was crying."

Lauren, from Preston, has now rebuilt her life and in September she will start a business degree at Liverpool John Moores University.

She says: "I refuse to let this define who I am. I don't want people looking at me, saying, 'she's different because she's been raped'." - Mirror

Tags: rape,