My secret rape horror – by Brexit battler Gina
ANTI-BREXIT campaigner Gina Miller reveals today the horror of being raped in a gang attack when she was a student – and how it turned her into a terrified recluse.
The 53-year-old businesswoman – who successfully led the campaign to allow Parliament a vote on Brexit – tells of her shocking ordeal in a searingly frank exclusive interview in The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine.
The Guyanese- born motherof-three was a student at the University of East London when the attack happened. She describes how she was walking to the Tube station at night in Mile End when the group of men ‘brutally attacked her’. She crawled into a cab afterwards but refused to be taken to a hospital or police station.
She recalls: ‘I went into shock. It took me a long time to come to terms with what happened. I hid in my bedroom for weeks; I couldn’t even think about leaving the room, which was safe. I felt really lonely.’
In her forthcoming memoir, Rise: Life Lessons In Speaking Out, Standing Tall & Leading The Way, Ms Miller reveals she felt ‘dirty, vio- lated’ after the attack but does not use the word ‘rape’. But when interviewer Rachel Johnson asks her: Were you raped, Gina?’ Johnson writes: ‘Her eyes meet mine and she sighs and nods.’
Years later, Ms Miller’s Brexit vote campaign would lead to vile abuse and death threats against her and her children. And even now, nearly two years after successfully challenging the Government’s decision to trigger Brexit without letting Parliament have a say, Ms Miller and her family live under tight security. When she sees people approaching her carrying bottles of water, she panics that they are going to throw acid in her face.
Despite the constant threats, she stands by her efforts in court, saying: ‘ My case was not whether [Brexit] was right or wrong. My point was the rule of law had to be properly observed.’
She describes the domestic challenges she has faced, including caring for her elder daughter Lucy-Ann. She was told by doctors when LucyAnn, now 30, was two that she had been badly brain-damaged at birth. ‘Lucy-Ann awoke the lioness in me,’ she says. ‘ I knew I had to be a fighter for her.’
Ms Miller also claims she suffered abuse from her second husband, Jon Maguire. However, in a previous interview with the MoS, Mr Maguire strongly denied this and said her own drinking habits caused problems in their stormy relationship. In 2003, she met Alan Miller, who became her third husband when they married in 2005 while she was expecting their son Luca, now 13. Ms Miller says: ‘It took me a long time to trust a man again.’
Her family, which also includes younger daughter Lana, ten, divides t heir t i me between houses in Chelsea and France. Ms Miller rejects accusations she has relied on wealthy husbands. ‘What I’ve achieved in my life means I don’t need anyone’s money,’ she says.