A 20-year old Irish woman claims she was drugged and then raped after stopping for a late-night drink in a Roman pub. The woman is a student who has been living in Rome for the last six months.
On Monday night, she and her flatmate dropped into a pub close to their apartment in the south-eastern suburb of Rome near the Via Tuscolana for a drink and something to eat, she says. When they finished eating, it was midnight and they were the last customers in the pub.
At that point, the owner of the pub, who is being referred to in the Italian press as Antonio C (55), came over to the two girls and started to talk to them. The woman's flatmate had to get up early for work on Tuesday morning and so went home, collected a second set of keys to the flat and returned to the pub to give the keys to her friend, who had decided to stay a little longer.
Over the course of the next hour, the woman says she drank some cocktails "offered" by the bar owner. From this point on, she says, her memory is hazy because she slipped into a semi-conscious state. She alleges she woke to find herself lying naked on an old white blanket. Subsequent medical examination in Rome's Policlinico hospital confirmed she had been raped, while cuts and bruises on her arms and breasts indicated a violent struggle.
According to the woman, the bar-owner then refused to let her go home and was persuaded to do so only when she started screaming and banging on the pub's steel shutters, which by that time had been pulled down.
Tests carried out at the hospital showed traces of hashish, cocaine and methadone in her urine.
In interviews with Rome-based dailies, the woman claimed that she had not consumed any drugs, and said she was convinced that the bar-owner had "spiked" her cocktails.
When confronted by police officers, the bar-owner at first denied any wrongdoing before claiming that the woman had asked him for money.
He has since been arrested and detained at Rome's Regina Coeli prison, on rape charges.