‘Really scary’: Ex-minister recalls night her close friend her close friend's drink was spiked

A former Home Office minister has revealed how a close friend had her drink spiked on a “really scary” night out in west London.

Laura Farris said spiking was “rife” as she recalled how the victim became separated from their group in a nightclub before collapsing in a stupor in Hammersmith.

Ms Farris, formerly the safeguarding minister and MP for Newbury, told the Standard: “Drink spiking is widespread and something that happened to a friend I was out with. It is rife.

“She was completely out of it but wasn’t drunk. We were in a really busy club. We all arrived together — she’d been at my flat before. We’d all had a couple of drinks and she was fine.

“Half an hour later, it was like she collapsed.”

Ms Farris, inset, added: “She got separated from the rest of us and then we found her with these two much older guys. They were saying, ‘Oh, your friend’s really out of it.’

“We took her back [to the flat] and she went to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, she didn’t even have a hangover, which is more consistent with someone who hadn’t had much to drink at all.

“She had no recollection of any of it. She could remember arriving [at the club] and then waking up.

“It was really scary. That’s never happened to anyone else I’ve been with.”

It comes as figures revealed on Tuesday showed more than 100 drink spiking crimes are taking place in London every month.

Campaigners issued urgent calls for action to protect victims amid a 13 per cent surge in spiking offences in the capital. A total of 1,383 allegations were recorded by police last year — an average of 115 a month.

But the real figure is likely to be much higher, with the National Police Chiefs’ Council warning that the issue is underreported and that cases can be hard to investigate because drugs pass through the system quickly.

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