British teen's 30-man rape hell which will horrify every parent: How a young woman's trip to Italy turned into a fight for survival against mob 'who grew more excited' the more terrified she became
By JAMES REYNOLDSPublished: 07:45 GMT, 19 January 2025 | Updated: 11:20 GMT, 19 January 2025
Article / Archive
A nineteen-year-old British victim of the horrifying mass sexual assault attack in Milan has bravely shared how she was assaulted by an 'organised' group of men she did not know as she brought in the new year with friends.
Imogen - who we are identifying by just her first name - had spent the evening with two male friends from England and a group of six Belgian students they had met in Italy before heading to the Piazza del Duomo to watch the fireworks.
In a harrowing testimony she described how she was ‘grabbed and pulled back’ while passing through a busy crowd, surrounded by around 30 men she did not know. ‘They held my arms, my hands. I couldn’t defend myself.’
‘Several men, at the same time, started to grope me, while another tried to pull up my dress,’ she said. ‘I was struggling to get free, and they were enjoying my distress.’
Imogen, a university student in northern England, said that one man tried to sexually assault her with his hands, and claimed that another mentioned raping her. The gang were later revealed by police to be Bangladeshi men.
'As I panicked, and fought for freedom, it became apparent that they enjoyed my distress and this only excited my attackers.'
She described the ‘dehumanising’ ordeal as a ‘fight to survive’, saying she escaped and was saved by her friends only when she started screaming.
Imogen, who tells us she is now safely back in the U.K., said she is struggling to regain her confidence and faith in humanity after feeling that she was going to be killed or raped in an unfamiliar country she thought to be safe.
'I am broken-hearted to have to fight this battle at the very beginning of my adult life,' she told Belgian media.
Nineteen-year-old Imogen (left) was with friends (pictured - one of the friends, not involved in the attack) in Italy bringing the new year when she says she was attacked by a group of men
Footage from New Year's Eve of the Piazza del Duomo shows chaotic scenes
Imogen said there was no police presence at the rowdy scene when they arrived.
Men in balaclavas had been filmed shooting fireworks into the crowd before the clock struck midnight.
The 19-year-old recounted that she and a friend had left the group to find a lavatory when she felt a man trying to grope her and pulling at her dress as she passed through the plaza.
She said she tried to ignore the attention at first and lost the man in the crowd.
In a pained testimony of events shared with Belgian outlet Sudinfo and MailOnline, Imogen said she felt unsafe making her way back through the crowd, noting that authorities had made no attempt to organise the event.
Moments before the clock struck midnight, the girls in the group said that they felt uncomfortable, and that they had felt men beginning to touch them.
'On our way back to find the group after the bar, we were more cautious, but reunited with the others quickly. However, this was when I began to feel unsafe – every man we passed stared at us, and I felt trapped among them,' she said.
'Around two minutes from midnight, the girls began to share that they were also uncomfortable and had felt men beginning to touch them. However, by this point, there was no escape and we were forced to stand next to our male friends for safety and wait for the fireworks. This was our biggest mistake.
'As the boys became distracted and pulled out their phones to record the New Year countdown, I was instantly grabbed from behind and pulled away from my friends. This is when the attack began.
'They held my arms and hands, so I couldn’t fight back, whilst I was surrounded by a group in what appeared to be an organised attack. Multiple men, at once, began to grope me, whilst another attempted to pull up my dress.
'As I panicked, and fought for freedom, it became apparent that they enjoyed my distress and this only excited my attackers.'
Imogen claims another man tried to sexually assault her, and that she heard one of the men mention rape.
'This is when my fight turned into one for survival,' she said.
Imogen said she was injured and left bleeding as she bravely fought back against the men attacking her.
She said an 'unknown liquid' was thrown over her, stinging her eyes and nose, and leaving her and her friends 'feeling as though we couldn't breathe'.
'Every man I passed, around 40, made some attempt to grope me, pull up my dress, separate me from my friends or fight me.'
Imogen and her friends were 'saved only by adrenaline and the bravery of my friends' as they fled the crowd.
But soon her attackers caught up and started punching her friend, she claims. She was grabbed, again, and separated from the group.
In a harrowing recollection, she described hearing the screams of another English woman next to her, who she said was also being held and sexually assaulted by a group.
She heroically tried to intervene and the woman managed to break free before her attackers turned their ire towards Imogen.
The commotion caused the crowd to disperse, giving Imogen and her friends space to escape.
She described having a panic attack as they took a moment of respite.
'Yet we were still not free.'
Her assailants caught up to the group, she said, and grabbed at her body, laughing.
When they were finally able to break free, they searched 'desperately' for the police, which seemed to scare off the attackers.
There were no police at the square, she said, and when they did eventually find officers they allegedly told her there was 'nothing that they could do'.
'When I showed them bloodied injuries I had on my arms and explained I and many other women had been sexually assaulted, their attitude changed'.
The police called in for backup and took a full statement before a female officer consoled her, explaining that this was 'a known problem and our attackers were Bangladeshi men'.
Video shows the New Year's Eve celebration in Milan, Italy
'Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far,' Laura (pictured) told Belgian broadcaster RTL
Much has been made of the background of the attackers in the Italian press, and Imogen told MailOnline that she wanted to share her story to 'dispel some of the disinformation being shared online and ensure our story is heard'.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that the men had been identified only as being second-generation North African men.
The evil we experienced that night was the absolute absence of religion. Those men had no motive but to take advantage of innocent women, knowing they would escape without suffering the consequences
But commentators have given conflicting and speculative accounts of who the men were and what their motives may have been.
'It is a total, blatant lie, to claim that our group were attacked by men holding Palestinian flags,' Imogen told Sudinfo.
'I think it is disgusting that people would use our traumatic story to push a political agenda and I want people to understand that many of the descriptions I have read are wholly untrue.
'I will not allow my sexual attack to become an opportunity to divide people – it is a moment to unite women, and the people of Italy, in outrage that this was allowed to happen during a joyful celebration.'
She told MailOnline she wanted to 'clarify' important details and 'dispel' myths by coming forward and bravely waiving her anonymity.
'I am so upset after reading many articles that claim it was a matter of religion, indirectly blaming Islam, whilst claiming our attack was "Taharrush Gamea".
'The evil we experienced that night was the absolute absence of religion. Those men had no motive but to take advantage of innocent women, knowing they would escape without suffering the consequences.
'It was not in the name of religion, it was not in the name of political activism, it was an act of vocalised disrespect towards the Italian people and their principles.'
Imogen was concerned that some tried to blame victims for 'provoking' their attackers.
'I dress modestly. I am tall, strong and did not encourage my attackers. Sexual assault is random. We are not to blame and I could never have expected our attack.'
She emphasised that they were met with 'kindness' by locals who helped them while walking home in an unfamiliar city after the incident.
She was clear that 'this is also not a reflection of all Bangladeshi people, or people non-native to Italy'.
'This was an organised group of disgusting men, who deserve to suffer the consequences of their actions.'
Imogen told MailOnline that she is now back in the U.K. and returning to her studies at university, but has been deeply shaken by the experience, and will need time to recover before she considers another trip abroad.
As she returns to sit exams, she hopes to 'spread awareness about what happened that night,' she said.
Imogen and her friends were joined by students from Liege at the time of the attack.
Laura, one of the Belgian students, told Belgian media previously that a group of 30 to 40 men became rowdy and started shouting ‘f*** you Italy’ and ‘s*** police’ in Italian before they were assaulted.
‘That’s when we were touched on our bodies, on our clothes and some of us, including myself, inside our clothes,’ Laura said.
‘Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far.’
Laura described how the group was allegedly surrounded by a group of men between the ages of about 20 and 40, and assaulted.
‘There were so many people around us that we couldn’t move,’ she said.
Milan prosecutors have since opened an investigation into allegations that the Belgians were sexually assaulted by men.
Imogen told MailOnline that she is currently in the process of filing a legal complaint via the Italian embassy in England, and that investigators are currently speaking to other women to understand the full 'scale' of the attack.
The group of students watched the fireworks on the Piazza del Duomo outside Milan's cathedral, where men wearing balaclavas were filmed causing chaotic scenes by shooting fireworks into the crowd on the same night
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and Milan Cathedral square
The attack has been compared to the 2015-16 New Year's Eve mass sexual assault attacks in Cologne, Germany.
Police were summoned for crisis talks after about 80 women reported being assaulted and mugged by men as they gathered at the city's central railway station.
About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved in the attacks, contemporary reports claimed. Others put the number closer to 1,200.
One perpetrator, found guilty of being an accomplice to sexual assault during the attacks, told a man walking with two female victims: 'Give me the girls. give me the girls - or you're dead.'
Another attacker was found to have kissed a young woman against her will and then licked her face.
Both were given a one-year suspended sentence and their victims wept in court.
Another victim of the attacks suffered serious burns when a firework was shoved into the hood she was wearing.
Fury fell towards the authorities and lack of available staffing.
Der Spiegel described how the police force was so overwhelmed that it could not protect a policewoman from being publicly groped.
Officers reportedly cleared out the square by the station, but some attackers were said to have returned after the police left.
In the aftermath, authorities described the night had been 'largely peaceful', before acknowledging the vast scale of the attacks.
