The same year there were an estimated 2.3 million victims of spiking in the UK. According to the ONS, that is more than the number of people who voted for the Green party in the UK’s most recent general election.
There’s been a 360% increase in drink spiking offences reported to the Met Police since 2018. But 90% of victims do not even go as far as to report, according to research published this month by Drinkaware. Why? Roughly half said “they didn’t see the point”.
What is it like to be a victim of spiking?
Someone spiked Annie (not her real name) on a night out with friends in London last year. She went to bed late that night and woke up the next day at 6pm, unable to stand up without vomiting.
The worst bit wasn’t just being sick but feeling so weak and my whole body was just in pain. It felt like I’d run a marathon.
Annie
Annie phoned 111 and answered a “whole list of questions that [weren’t] relevant…whilst feeling like death on the end of the phone”. She was met with doubt: “are you sure it’s not just a really bad hangover?”
It was only the day after, when she noticed needle marks on her arm that she realised it was not “just a really bad hangover”.
Bars and clubs are the most common places where spiking occur
Will Labour’s new legislation help?
On Monday, Labour committed to making spiking a specific criminal offence. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he hopes it will “give people the confidence to come forward”. Gina Miller is a business owner and domestic abuse survivor. She believes this new legislation is a positive shift on the “surface level”, but lacks the “depth” in which “we need institutional change”.
We’re going to bring these laws in. Who’s going to police them? […] I can tell you as a survivor that police are not trained in dealing with women and girls or domestic abuse or violence.
Gina Miller
Miller added, “Young women are having to do things like wear nail varnishes that change colour, wear thin leather jackets so they don’t have needles going through them. Women and young girls shouldn’t be the ones protecting themselves. Society should be protecting them”.
Gina Miller, business woman and activist
Labour’s new legislation is supported by a nationwide training programme run by UK Hospitality. “We are committed to ensuring all staff know how to prevent spiking and have the skills to act if they suspect someone has been spiked”, said CEO Kate Nicholls.
When this was put to Tom (not his real name), who was spiked alongside his girlfriend at a party aged 18, he paused, raising his eyebrows – “so are bar staff the police now?”
A friend of a friend spiked Tom and his girlfriend. “The same guy had done it at different parties. Basically, it was a trend. People would have known his name”.
When they told the host, she was “shocked but dismissive”. There was a mutual understanding that “Southwest London is just like that”.
What other measures are in place to help?
A survey by Drinkaware found that if measures were taken to prevent spiking (only 5% of venues surveyed said they had measures in place), the most common was CCTV, followed by reporting schemes like Ask for Angela. A recent BBC investigation, revealed however that over half of London venues didn’t know what the codeword ‘Angela’ meant. The survey also had a caveat – no research had been done into which methods effectively prevented spiking.
Most spiking incidents took place in bars and clubs (69.6% in 2023). But the danger is sometimes closer to home, with 15.6% of needling incidents taking place at a private home and 20.7% at a private event, according to Drinkaware.
It’s another statistic that is “absolutely destroying the confidence that we have a society that’s really protecting women and girls” according to Miller. Spiking can occur in public, but it can be a part of domestic abuse as well – the Gisèle Pelicot rape case a recent example.
At least one in every 12 women will be a victim of violence each year. The exact number is expected to be much higher, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The figures are growing – can they be stopped? Miller is saddened that we “seem to be seeing real retrograde steps to the rights that women have fought so long for”. Tom believes the issue starts in school.
Our teachers would always get so sheepish in sex education. Making it taboo makes it much harder to solve.
Tom
Miller agrees – “we need a complete change of the system. There is so much work to do. Courts are not trained enough, judges are not trained enough…Society has to look really differently at how we value women”.
The same year there were an estimated 2.3 million victims of spiking in the UK. According to the ONS, that is more than the number of people who voted for the Green party in the UK’s most recent general election.
There’s been a 360% increase in drink spiking offences reported to the Met Police since 2018. But 90% of victims do not even go as far as to report, according to research published this month by Drinkaware. Why? Roughly half said “they didn’t see the point”.
What is it like to be a victim of spiking?
Someone spiked Annie (not her real name) on a night out with friends in London last year. She went to bed late that night and woke up the next day at 6pm, unable to stand up without vomiting.
The worst bit wasn’t just being sick but feeling so weak and my whole body was just in pain. It felt like I’d run a marathon.
Annie
Annie phoned 111 and answered a “whole list of questions that [weren’t] relevant…whilst feeling like death on the end of the phone”. She was met with doubt: “are you sure it’s not just a really bad hangover?”
It was only the day after, when she noticed needle marks on her arm that she realised it was not “just a really bad hangover”.
Bars and clubs are the most common places where spiking occur
Will Labour’s new legislation help?
On Monday, Labour committed to making spiking a specific criminal offence. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he hopes it will “give people the confidence to come forward”. Gina Miller is a business owner and domestic abuse survivor. She believes this new legislation is a positive shift on the “surface level”, but lacks the “depth” in which “we need institutional change”.
We’re going to bring these laws in. Who’s going to police them? […] I can tell you as a survivor that police are not trained in dealing with women and girls or domestic abuse or violence.
Gina Miller
Miller added, “Young women are having to do things like wear nail varnishes that change colour, wear thin leather jackets so they don’t have needles going through them. Women and young girls shouldn’t be the ones protecting themselves. Society should be protecting them”.
Gina Miller, business woman and activist
Labour’s new legislation is supported by a nationwide training programme run by UK Hospitality. “We are committed to ensuring all staff know how to prevent spiking and have the skills to act if they suspect someone has been spiked”, said CEO Kate Nicholls.
When this was put to Tom (not his real name), who was spiked alongside his girlfriend at a party aged 18, he paused, raising his eyebrows – “so are bar staff the police now?”
A friend of a friend spiked Tom and his girlfriend. “The same guy had done it at different parties. Basically, it was a trend. People would have known his name”.
When they told the host, she was “shocked but dismissive”. There was a mutual understanding that “Southwest London is just like that”.
What other measures are in place to help?
A survey by Drinkaware found that if measures were taken to prevent spiking (only 5% of venues surveyed said they had measures in place), the most common was CCTV, followed by reporting schemes like Ask for Angela. A recent BBC investigation, revealed however that over half of London venues didn’t know what the codeword ‘Angela’ meant. The survey also had a caveat – no research had been done into which methods effectively prevented spiking.
Most spiking incidents took place in bars and clubs (69.6% in 2023). But the danger is sometimes closer to home, with 15.6% of needling incidents taking place at a private home and 20.7% at a private event, according to Drinkaware.
It’s another statistic that is “absolutely destroying the confidence that we have a society that’s really protecting women and girls” according to Miller. Spiking can occur in public, but it can be a part of domestic abuse as well – the Gisèle Pelicot rape case a recent example.
At least one in every 12 women will be a victim of violence each year. The exact number is expected to be much higher, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The figures are growing – can they be stopped? Miller is saddened that we “seem to be seeing real retrograde steps to the rights that women have fought so long for”. Tom believes the issue starts in school.
Our teachers would always get so sheepish in sex education. Making it taboo makes it much harder to solve.
Tom
Miller agrees – “we need a complete change of the system. There is so much work to do. Courts are not trained enough, judges are not trained enough…Society has to look really differently at how we value women”.
