Drink-spike warning from Cork solicitor after reports of several incidents in city centre

A Cork solicitor is urging people to be wary on nights out, after the daughter of a friend had her drink spiked while she was celebrating an engagement in the city centre.

Patrick Horan says that people need to be aware that spiking does happen.

Mr Horan said the woman collapsed while on a night out in the city on July 5, in to the morning of July 6.

She had been celebrating a friend’s engagement and she was drinking water when she collapsed in a pub.

A doctor, who was on the premises, raised the alarm and the woman became conscious on her way to hospital in an ambulance.

She made contact with her mother at around 9am on July 6 and the concerned mother went to the hospital to bring her daughter home.

Mr Horan said: “She was quite groggy from it.”

While she recovered, she was “traumatised by it, that feeling of not knowing what had happened”, Mr Horan said.

He said he received a call from a woman posting a warning on LinkedIn about spiking. She told him of four other recent cases in Cork, he said.

He told The Echo that he had been aware of spiking, “but I was not aware that it was as prevalent as it is”.

He added: “This is clearly a problem and is a bigger issue than I thought.”

Mr Horan said: “These people are out there and are targeting women and looking for any vulnerability whatsoever. They are hanging around middle-class pubs and targeting women.”

Last month, the Cork Sexual Violence Centre launched a campaign for spiking to be the subject of new legislation.

A motion at the National Women’s Council annual general meeting was passed.

Currently, spiking by either injection or by putting a substance in a drink is an offence under the Non-Fatal Against the Persons Act 1997. The Programme for Government has promised the introduction of stronger laws to combat the spiking of drinks.

There is no court data in relation to spiking, because it is not a standalone crime.