The Nicola Furlong murder trial in Japan once again highlighted the spectre of drinks-spiking. But just how much of a danger is it posing in the pubs and clubs of Ireland, wonders John Hearne.
One of the most disturbing images to emerge from the Nicola Furlong murder trial in Tokyo was that of Nicola and her friend, passed out in wheelchairs, being conveyed from the lobby of the hotel to the rooms upstairs.
American James Blackston was subsequently convicted of sexually assaulting Nicola’s friend in a taxi that night. Identified in court as ‘Victim B’, the woman said that she blacked out after drinking tequila that Blackston had given her.
The prevalence of drink-spiking has always been a controversial subject. While research has suggested it is not as common as believed, it’s still not that difficult to find testimony which affirms that it does happen.
Cliona Saidlear of Rape Crisis Network Ireland says she’s in no doubt that drink spiking is a real phenomenon. “What we experience is people coming into us and saying, ‘Look I don’t know what happened last night’, or ‘I’ve a blank, and that never happens when I drink’.”
“They will say: ‘I had three drinks and next thing I woke up in some strange bed’, or ‘I woke up naked in my own bed.’ People will say that they have some physical evidence that they had sex last night but they can’t account for it.”
However, a 2009 study of more than 200 students by the University of Kent revealed that many of them wrongly blamed the effects of excessive alcohol consumption on so called date-rape drugs like Rohypnol. The study, published by the British Journal of Criminology, said three-quarters of students questioned believed that drink-spiking was a more significant risk factor in sexual assault than alcohol. Researchers said that despite these beliefs, police have found no evidence that these drugs are commonly used in sexual assaults.
Though we’ve had no robust research into the incidence of drink-spiking in Ireland, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that there is heightened awareness of the risk.
Testifying before an Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children ten years ago, then Senator Mary Henry, who was a board member of the Rotunda hospital, said that some young women attending the sexual assault unit at the hospital didn’t know for sure if they had been raped or assaulted.
Source: John Hearne, Irish Examiner, 22/03/13
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