Woman collapsed in the street after her drink was ‘spiked’ in a bar
POLICE are investigating a woman’s claim she had her drink spiked with a suspected date-rape drug in a bar.
Emma Beaumont, 36, fears if it hadn’t been for the intervention of her friend, she could have been the victim of an even more sinister crime.
She told how she collapsed in the street after visiting Hula bar on Burton Road in West Didsbury and has very little recollection of the night’s events.
Emma, who works in TV, was out with two friends on Saturday, July 14, when they visited Hula at about 11.30pm. “We were only going to stay for an hour and then go home,” she said.
“We bought drinks and walked towards the centre of the bar. There was a group of guys and one of them started talking to me after my friend accidentally trod on his friend’s foot. His behaviour was just so peculiar. He kept coming over to chat to me then disappearing.
“And none of his friends said anything to me, or tried to talk to my friends - they just kept watching me from behind.
“At one point I spilled a bit of my drink on the floor and my friend said they looked really angry.
“I’ve been going out to bars for twenty years and I’ve never seen a group of lads behave like that.”
Emma says she had her drink with her the whole night and never left it unattended. But she believes at some point the ‘good-looking’ man talking to her must have dropped something in her drink.
After about an hour, Emma’s friend asked if they could go outside to get some fresh air. Emma said: “As soon as we walked out my friend looked at me and said ‘I think you’ve been spiked your pupils are microscopic. We need to leave now.’
“After that I can’t really remember anything. We were walking towards my house and I collapsed outside a takeaway.
“Apparently the people working there came out with a chair asking ‘Is she drunk?’ My friend said ‘She’s definitely not drunk, she’s been given something, I’ve never seen her like this before.’”
Emma’s friends managed to get her home safely but she says she woke with ‘the worst hangover ever times ten.’
“I don’t know what it was they gave me - but I felt awful for days,” she added. “I felt so incredibly down and just not right. It took days to feel myself again.”
Emma called 101 the next day to report the incident to police. She has now given a full statement to an officer and inquiries are being made with Hula bar.
It is understood CCTV has been saved and will be examined by police to identify potential suspects.
“I just want to warn other women really,” said Emma. “If he had asked me to go outside with him - or if I hadn’t been with my friends...
“I don’t even want to think what might have happened - it could have been much worse.”
Police confirmed they were called to reports a woman had become unwell after having something put in her drink at a bar on Burton Road. “Enquiries are ongoing and anyone with information should call police,” a spokesman added.
Rosalind Haskins – Head of Compliance for Mark Andrew Developments which runs Hula bar - told the M.E.N.: “Since being made aware of the incident we have been corresponding with Emma and helping her as much as we can, as well as co-operating with the GMP to catch the perpetrator.
“We take the safety of our customers very seriously and our staff are trained to look out for any suspicious activity.
“We are satisfied this was an isolated incident.”