I blacked out, then awoke naked and cold ...he was sitting, staring at me

18 months when she downloaded the Match app in 2013.

‘I worked full-time and had limited childcare,’ she says. ‘I said I was a single mother looking for a serious relationship.’

After two months, Jack caught her attention. He claimed he was a separated father of two, in his late 30s like Vicky, who worked as a music producer. ‘He was goodlooking and sounded like a good father,’ says Vicky, who now lives in Cottered, Herts. ‘He seemed to admire my independence.’

After a week of messaging, they met in a London bar for a drink. ‘He looked exactly like his profile picture, if not better. We talked a lot about work and children. There was chemistry,’ she recalls.

After they met for dinner the following Thursday, Vicky was halfway through a vodka martini when she went outside the restaurant for a cigarette: ‘I remember stumbling down the steps. Suddenly, I could barely see.’

The next thing she recalls is coming round briefly in the night, naked and cold. ‘Jack was sitting clothed on a chair, staring at me,’ she says. When she woke alone, still naked, the next morning, she realised she was in a hotel room.

‘I felt sick,’ she says. ‘I was ashamed and embarrassed. I was 37 — a mother with responsibilities — and thought I’d somehow got really drunk.’

She messaged Jack. ‘He said he’d had to go to work and that I’d got really drunk that night. He made me feel worse. We didn’t speak again.’

For two days Vicky stayed in bed — her ex in charge of their baby — feeling sick and shaky. It was only after speaking to a friend that she realised her blackout was probably caused by a spiked drink. ‘I don’t think Jack raped me but I can’t say for sure,’ she says. Why did he get me undressed? Why was he sitting staring at me?’ As well as reporting him to Match — now charging members from £9.99 a month — via their in-app contact form, Vicky called the police.

‘They asked why I hadn’t called sooner. They said they probably couldn’t do anything because I’d showered and any evidence of being drugged had probably passed through my body. I decided there was no point in pursuing it.’

Catherine Donoghue decided not to report the man she met on Plenty of Fish, either — even though he choked her nearly to the point where she thought she would suffocate.

‘If I could have put something on his profile to warn other women I would have — but of course it wasn’t possible,’ says Catherine, 52, an account manager and divorced mother of three adult children, who lives near Leeds and downloaded the app in 2018.

‘I said I wanted to meet someone my age, living within a fivemile vicinity,’ she says.

She had three uneventful coffee dates, then Paul made contact: ‘He sounded intelligent, worked with animals and was attractive.’

They messaged for two weeks, spoke on the phone, then met in a bar, where the first thing he said to Catherine, who was wearing a floral dress, was: ‘If you always dress like that, we’ll have no problems.’ She recalls: ‘I was thrown.’

Looking back, there were other signs of Paul’s compulsion to control. ‘On our third date, he hired out a whole restaurant for us,’ she says. ‘I was mortified but I put it down to him trying too hard to impress.’

In other ways, he was a gentle, doting partner, offering to take Catherine’s dog for a walk and buying her flowers: ‘He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t swear.’

They dated for three months and were having sex in her bed when Paul tried to choke her.

‘He put his hands round my neck and squeezed. I put everything into fighting him off but he was on top and bigger. I began to black out.’

SHe was getting ever weaker when he stopped. ‘I sat up, coughing, and asked what the hell just happened,’ she says. ‘He started shaking and apologised but said “you bring this out in me”.’

Catherine decided it would be safer to let Paul stay than try to force him to leave. ‘I lay awake all night, terrified,’ she says.

For two days, she ignored his texts and voicemails before texting to tell him to leave her alone. ‘I said “You could have killed me. Don’t contact me again”,’ she recalls.

And that was when, as she puts it, Paul ‘got really nasty’.

She explains: ‘He said he’d set up his phone next to the bed and recorded everything we’d done “as insurance”. He said if I went to the police, he’d send the video to my friends and family. I said I didn’t believe him. He asked if I was willing to risk it.’

The threat was made before blackmailing someone with the threat of sharing sexual images was made illegal this year — and Catherine says: ‘The thought of my children seeing me in a compromising position was horrifying. I just wanted to forget it.’

Catherine has been too traumatised to date anyone else.

A spokesperson for Match Group told the Mail: ‘Violent offenders have no place in our physical or online communities; we act on every report received, and remove and block anyone suspected of this behaviour from all our platforms.

‘We utilise industry-leading technologies and support legislation across the world that promotes safety. We are outraged that singles may experience fear, discomfort or worse when looking to meet someone special.’

Some names and details have been changed.

For help and support, visit rapecrisis.org.uk or call their helpline on 0808 802 9999.