I was attacked in a minicab

It's so strange, but I have only recently started having nightmares about the evening I was attacked. Sometimes I'm with my boyfriend in bed. He'll cuddle up to me and I wake up, terrified, pushing him away because once again I'm in the back of that minicab, feeling the driver lying on top of me, feeling his mouth on top of mine. I thought I could put it behind me, but I know now that I never will.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened on that warm October night, just before my 17th birthday. I had been out with friends but had arranged to meet another girlfriend later at a club - Shoeless Joe's, off King's Road. My friends walked me there and waved goodbye at the door. I was in a great mood - even though I'd only had one glass of white wine all evening, I felt really happy and ready to dance.

It was about 10.30pm when I met up with my girlfriend and another couple of friends of hers. The bar was so crowded we didn't even bother to buy drinks, we just got straight on the floor and danced.

A guy kept pestering me, asking if I wanted a drink. I was getting really annoyed but eventually accepted a vodka and cranberry juice - I didn't want to spoil the evening by being rude. After a few sips, I started to feel groggy. Not drunk, just strange. I went to the loo and sat down, feeling as though I wanted to throw up. The lights and the noise of the music were blurred, and I think I must have passed out. I didn't realise it at the time, but he'd put a date-rape drug in my drink.

The next thing I knew, a bouncer was pulling me out of the toilet - I felt really ill and couldn't find my purse or mobile phone, I couldn't even see my friends. I was deposited on the pavement outside the club, where I vomited. All I could think was "I've got to get home", which was only five minutes up the road. A scruffy minicab had pulled up outside and the driver - paunchy and in his forties, I guess - held the front passenger door open. I never usually took minicabs. I'm an only child - dad, an advertising executive, and my mum, a housewife, divorced when I was little; mum, who's always been overprotective, made me promise that if I was alone I'd get a black cab. But I wanted to get home so badly I didn't care. I refused to get in the front and let myself into the back. At that point, I must have passed out again.

The next thing I remember was coming to and feeling someone on top of me, kissing my mouth. At first, I couldn't register or understand what the hell was going on. I could feel fumbling down below as if someone was trying to open the zip of my jeans and push my leather jacket open. I have no recollection of smell but felt a tongue in my mouth - everything seemed bad and wrong. My instincts were to fight off this man - who I now realised was the minicab driver - but I was too weak and still pretty groggy.

Incredibly, some sense took over and I knew that I must try to keep calm and, more importantly, calm him down. I couldn't even say how fast my heart was beating because I was concentrating so hard on not panicking. I kept saying, "I want to go home", then suddenly he moved away from me and said, "Okay, we'll go home."

As he drove the short distance, he said matter-of-factly: "If you ever need a cab again, call me." I should have taken his number for the police but I was so confused. He kept asking me if I wanted to see him again. I kept saying "no", but then, to shut him up, gave him a fake number and told him to call me.

When I got out of the cab, I turned round to see if I had left anything on the seat and he was immediately behind me, stroking my bottom. I pleaded with him to leave me alone and he did stop molesting me, but insisted on walking me across the road. He tried to kiss me goodnight but, as I recoiled, he apologised and said, "Don't worry about the money, just contact me." I said nothing and, heart beating out of my chest by now, opened the front door to the block of flats in Kensington where I live with my mother, pushed myself through and shut it in his face.

My mind shut off again and I lay down on the bed. Everything was a blank, and I didn't wake up until the following afternoon. When I woke, I was terrified. I knew something had happened, but at first, I didn't know what or why. It took a while for the club and cab ride to sink in. I was in a state of shock. Had I been raped? I had no idea. All I could think of was pregnancy and Aids.

I was almost hysterical by then. I couldn't face telling anyone, apart from a close friend, who said I had to tell my mum and phone the police immediately. I was reeling at the horror of the situation - would the police blame me for what had happened in the club and say I had brought this on myself ? I had no idea whether I even wanted to tell them, I felt so ashamed.

Thankfully, I decided to tell my mum. I broke down in tears, and although my mum was horrified, she was really supportive and we called the police together.

They came to my flat and took me to the police hospital at Charing Cross. Having to be tested for rape was a degrading experience; I was given an internal examination, as well as a DNA test, all sorts of humiliating things.

My pubic hair was combed, to find goodness knows what. I felt violated - it was almost as bad as what had happened in the cab. I kept saying, "I'm sorry" over and over to the police. Sorry I was wasting their time, that this was my fault. But they were so sympathetic and kind. It was obvious that this kind of incident was all too common. Although a semen stain was found on my jeans - which proved that I had been sexually assaulted - I was very lucky, I hadn't been raped.

I refused the counselling I was offered - I just didn't feel I could cope with going over and over it again - but I was assigned a police liaison officer, who was a wonderful support.

The strangest thing was that when I was asked to describe the driver I could see a picture in my head, yet I couldn't actually give a description - like a song that's whirring round your brain but you can't sing it aloud. But when I was asked to do an E-Fit, I put it together straight away, and I identified this man at a line-up - the picture was an exact likeness.

There was another victim at the ID parade who actually had been raped in a minicab and she also picked the same man out. He was a known sex offender whose DNA was on file and matched that of my attacker.

The trial was in January last year, and the man got two-and-a-half years in Wandsworth Prison, which I've been told is the worst place for sex offenders, but not by a million years long enough. The worst thing I learned was that he's married with four children - the youngest was a week old when he went to jail.

Between the attack and the court case, I managed to cope by blanking it out and just taking one step at a time. I thought I had managed to get over it without being deeply affected, but I found it very difficult to form relationships, or even let anyone close until I met my current boyfriend, just over a year ago.

It's only recently that the whole terrible experience has come back to haunt me. I know there are the dregs of society out there, preying on women who may be the worse for wear after an evening out. The fact that I was slipped a drug is terrible in itself, but if I'd drunk too much the result would have been the same.

My message to women alone is: never get into any cab but a black one if you can possibly help it. If there's nothing but a minicab available, make sure it's licensed and take a card. Write down the licence number and registration.

Call someone so the driver hears you, give details of where you are coming from, the name of the cab firm and how soon you expect to arrive. Do anything that might deter the driver from thinking you are not wise to what can happen.

If they are innocent of such thoughts, they shouldn't be insulted. They must understand how their guilty colleagues will eventually ruin their own livelihoods by association.