I dropped to the floor and couldn't move - spiking can happen anywhere

A woman who says her drink was spiked on a night out wants people to be aware that spiking can happen in rural areas as well as larger towns and cities.

Tirion Richards, 31, said she was conscious but unable to see, move her legs or lift her head following the incident in Cardigan, Ceredigion, in January.

Spiking - when alcohol or drugs are given to a person without them knowing or agreeing - is a criminal offence which carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison.

Dyfed-Powys Police said spiking could "happen anywhere, no matter one's age, gender, sexuality or ethnicity".

Tirion, from Brechfa in Carmarthenshire, had been out for drinks with friends and was walking back to her mum's house afterwards when she "suddenly dropped to the floor".

"I remember that I couldn't move my legs. I was really struggling to put one foot in front of the other and I remember linking both of my friends' arms and they were trying to help me walk and I just couldn't even stand up."

She said her friends carried her to her sister's house where she "collapsed on the floor and I remember I was conscious but couldn't see anything".

"I was choking on my vomit because I wasn't even lifting my head forward to be sick."

When Tirion woke up the following morning, she felt very unwell and initially believed she was hungover until she began piecing the night's events together.

She reported the incident to the police via 101 and gave a statement and urine sample, for which she is still awaiting the results.

Tirion said she felt violated and upset about what could have happened to her.

"I'm quite shaken actually, because it made me unwell for a couple of days."

She said she was "very surprised" that it had happened in a rural area and decided to share her story on social media.

Many women contacted her to share their own experiences, the vast majority of whom said they had not reported what happened to the police.

One of the women who contacted Tirion was Lorraine Beattie, who also said she was spiked while at a birthday drinks in a pub in Cardigan.

"It could've killed me, if I had not been with sensible people who demanded an ambulance," said Lorraine.

Lorraine said she went to the party mid-afternoon and remembered "feeling really enclosed, the room was just becoming really small, it was a really weird feeling".

She said that she bought two glasses of wine but felt unwell, "phasing out a little", after the second drink.

"There were lots of people back and forth from the bar and table as it was a birthday and I did leave my drink unattended.

"I don't remember anything, because I was unconscious and vomiting on the floor."

Lorraine said she woke up in hospital "covered in vomit, it was all in my hair, all over my face".

Lorraine said while she was grateful for the treatment she received in hospital, medical staff initially suspected she was drunk, before blood tests "proved I was not intoxicated by alcohol".

"The doctor asked what recreational drugs I had taken - this is the point when I realised I had been spiked," she said.

"It's the inhumanity of the evil person that did this to me that's unforgivable. They will kill somebody doing this," she added.

Dawn Dines, CEO of the charity Stamp Out Spiking, said there was a misconception that spiking only happened "in the big cities, in Cardiff, London, in Manchester, you know, all the big cities, but that really is not the case. Spiking can happen at any place, at any time, and to anybody".

"We believe that the government should really be putting some sort of funding into training bar staff, door security. We also think that they should be possibly funding to get some of these drink covers put into bars and restaurants," she added.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Nobody should ever have to worry about their safety on a night out when they should be enjoying themselves.

"We are already working with bars, pubs and venues across the country to roll out free, specialist training for staff, supporting police with pilots of new tactics, and have introduced a new criminal offence for spiking to help victims come forward and bring more offenders to justice."

A Cardiff University report found that 91% of spiking victims were female and 55% were between the ages of 18 and 25.

Prof Simon Moore, Director of the Violence Research Group at Cardiff University, said: "Spiking is a crime that predominantly targets young people, anyone could become a victim of - it can be carried out by people you know and strangers.

"With the various forms of spiking and the motivations behind spiking, we must get an in-depth understanding of who is being impacted by spiking and how people are being spiked."