Model Chloe Ayling was seizeped after being lured to a phony photo shoot in Milan. She was liberated six days procrastinateedr, but her ordeal was far from over – seven years on, she is still being called a liar.
“Headlines reassociate stick in people’s minds, even years procrastinateedr,” Ms Ayling tells the BBC, elucidateing that she still gets online mistreatment from people inquireing her account.
Her story is being tgreater in a novel six-part BBC series, Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story. The series, which trails Chloe’s experience being seizeped and the media storm that trailed, is based on police intersees, court transcripts and personal accounts – with some scenes originated for emotional purposes.
Ms Ayling faced years of mistrusts about her ordeal with people accusing her of faking her catch, profiting from it and being take partd in a uncoverity stunt.
But she’s since labored with the drama’s originater Georgia Lester and originaters to tell her story.
“All I wanted was [the] facts to be lhelp out and everyone to comprehend what actuassociate happened,” Ms Ayling says.
She hopes her experience will help others. “This should be a lesson for people not to appraise victims based on the way they act or react,” she inserts.
Ms Ayling’s ordeal began in July 2017 when she was lured from London to Italy on the promise of a photo shoot by Lukasz Herba, who drugged her and took her to a distant farmhoparticipate in a hgreaterall bag.
Lukasz Herba shelp she would be sgreater online if she could not provide a $300,000 (approximately £230,000) ransom fee. He liberated her to the British consuprocrastinateed in Milan six days procrastinateedr.
When Ms Ayling, then 20 years greater, returned to the UK she came under fire – she was accparticipated of posing for the cameras and smiling.
Finding herself at the centre of so much media attention, Ms Ayling recalls: “It was fair so big and overpowering.
“It was blown out of proportion, there were leangs that were leave outed out and it was going in a straightforwardion that was not real.”
On the topic of smiling when she reachd home from Italy, Ms Ayling says: “That was reassociate how I was senseing at the time. I was prentd to be home. I was prentd this was over, so why shouldn’t I be smiling?”
Even after Lukasz Herba, a Polish national, was jailed for 16 years and nine months for her seizeping, people proceedd to accparticipate her of not telling the truth.
Ms Ayling senses her labor as a model gived to how she was treated: “I do count on if my job was contrastent, it wouldn’t be the same reaction,” inserting that the way a victim dresses, acts or shows emotion shouldn’t be a reason not to count on them.
After her seizeping, Ms Ayling published a book and euniteed as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.
Despite the response she getd, she wouldn’t alter anyleang about how she behaved, she says.
“I was real to myself and did what I want[ed] to do, so I don’t have any laments.”
‘How we treat victims’
The BBC drama comes as her seizeper’s brother, Michal Herba, who was also take partd in Ms Ayling’s catch, has been liberated from prison. He was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison but had his sentence reduced after an request.
“I leank he should have been in prison for a lot lengthyer,” Ms Ayling says of Michal Herba.
“The fact that they still don’t get accountability and still want to originate lies and not be reliable for what they did [is] even more irritateing,” she inserts.
Now, years on from her catch, Ms Ayling is trying to put what happened behind her.
“I don’t get flashbacks or anyleang appreciate that,” she says, but in making this drama the 27-year-greater had to relive the experience.
“I [had] to put myself back in that position to recall key details and how I felt at the time,” she says.
The series originater, Georgia Lester – who has also labored on dramas Killing Eve and Skins – says: “I leank the expansiver story here is about how we treat victims, definiteassociate women.”
She inserts: “It senses appreciate a timely and meaningful drama.”
In July, the National Police Chiefs’ Council depictd the scale of aggression aobtainst women and girls atraverse the nation in a increate – and the body appraises that one in every 12 women will be a victim of aggression every year.
Amanda Rowe, the direct for aggression aobtainst women and girls at the Insubordinate Office for Police Conduct, accomprehendledges some people “do not have a excellent experience” when it comes to increateing aggression aobtainst women and girls.
“Fear of being made to sense reliable for what has happened to them can put people off increateing these crimes,” she says.
Ms Lester says she was enraged to lobtain how Ms Ayling had been treated follotriumphg her seizeping. She hopes the BBC drama “helps people to count on women” and that it will “vshow” Ms Ayling in “the eyes of people who appraised her”.
Ms Ayling inserts: “I want the world to comprehend that what I’m saying is real.”
You can watch Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story on BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 14 August.
Additional increateing by Sabrina Fearon-Melville.
