X Factor star Lucy Spraggan’s rapist deported to India after serving four years behind bars for sick attack
LUCY Spraggan’s rapist was deported to India after serving four years behind bars.
The former X Factor contestant was just 20 when she was attacked by hotel porter Soby John her in her luxury room at the Hilton London Metropole after a night out during filming.
Then aged 24, John, who was on a student visa from India, snuck into her room using a staff key card before raping the singer-songwriter as she slept.
Lucy said in the days after the assault, the side-effects of Pep – a drug that prevents HIV – made her too unwell to consider continuing with the competition.
John was jailed for ten years back in April 2013 – but was sent back to India on January 30, 2017, reports Mail Online.
In her new memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, Lucy said the rape took place after a night celebrating Rylan Clark’s 25th birthday at the swanky Mayfair nightclub Mahiki.
Lucy said that it was “inappropriate” for anyone, including contestants, to be drunk.
She told the Guardian: “I woke up the next day with this sense of sheer dread.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt that level of confusion since. I knew that I’d been raped, but I could not process that. So I put my clothes on and went into autopilot.”
The production team called the police and an arrest was quickly made, but the star said she felt they were “unprepared” to support her in the aftermath.
Lucy was a popular contestant during her time on the ITV talent show and impressed the judges with a song she had written.
She didn’t win the competition as she had to pull out – due to illness – but the Sheffield singer went on to sign a record deal with Columbia and later went independent.
Although she wanted to make public the reason for her exit from The X Factor, Lucy claimed various people told her: “You have your whole career ahead of you and you can’t retract this.”
But the singer-songwriter said she had since decided that “in order for me to rebuild myself and move on, I needed to tell the truth”.
The Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who commit crimes here in the UK will face the full force of the law, including deportation at the earliest opportunity for those eligible.”
A spokesperson for ITV said: “We have the deepest compassion for Lucy and everything she has endured as a result of this horrific ordeal. We commend her resilience and bravery.
“The X Factor was produced by Thames and Syco, who were primarily responsible for duty of care towards all of its programme contributors.
“ITV as a commissioning broadcaster is committed to having in place suitable and robust oversight procedures, with a view to ensuring that independent producers employ the correct processes to protect the mental health and welfare of participants.
“We continue to evolve our own duty of care processes on programmes we produce to ensure that there are appropriate measures in place to support contributors before, during and after filming. In an event of such a distressing nature, welfare and support towards the victim would always be of the utmost priority.”
A spokesperson for the production company behind the show, Fremantle, added: “The serious sexual assault suffered by Lucy Spraggan in October 2012 was a truly horrific criminal act for which the perpetrator, who was not connected with the programme, was rightfully prosecuted and imprisoned.
“Anyone should feel safe when they are sleeping in a hotel room – and it is abhorrent to think that a hotel porter abused that trust in such a vile way.
“To our knowledge, the assault was an event without precedent in the UK television industry.
“Whilst we believed throughout that we were doing our best to support Lucy in the aftermath of the ordeal, as Lucy thinks we could have done more, we must therefore recognise this. For everything Lucy has suffered, we are extremely sorry.
“Since then, we have done our very best to learn lessons from these events and improve our aftercare processes.
“Whilst we have worked hard to try and protect Lucy’s lifetime right to anonymity, we applaud her strength and bravery now that she has chosen to waive that right.”
