Hackney Wick nightclub Shapes threatened with closure after woman 'raped at sex party'

Shapes: The Hackney venue is faced with closure
Sabine Kindel
Mark Chandler25 July 2016
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A trendy nightclub could face closure after a woman was allegedly raped at a sex party.

The alleged attack took place at the Kinky Salon fancy dress swinging night in Hackney Wick's Shapes club, an old printing factory often used for raves and art events.

A woman claims that, after going there for her birthday on March 19, she voluntarily had sex with a man before he then raped her.

She reported that the man told her "If you didn't want it then you shouldn't have worn your collar" when she protested.

After the ordeal, she had to get up on stage to be presented with a birthday cake, it is claimed.

The woman, from Essex, later reported the alleged attack to local police, sparking a Met investigation.

But officers say venue licence holder Seb Glover delayed attempts by them to recover crucial video footage of that evening and only provided a CCTV hard drive when threatened with a warrant.

However, the drive contained no footage from the night in question and police say that has put their investigation at risk.

In a report to Hackney council's licensing committee, PC Guy Hicks wrote: "I have never had a venue premises licence holder make such cynical attempts to avoid giving investigating officers CCTV."

PC Hicks, who is calling for the venue to be stripped of its licence, went on: "It has occurred to me during the course of writing this statement that, on the balance of probability, the CCTV was possibly never recording at Kinky Salon due to the nature of the operation."

"Potential evidence relating to a serious crime has been lost or destroyed," he added.

However, the venue claims that any delays in obtaining the footage were because police failed to follow correct procedures.

Mr Glover told the Standard: "We did our utmost to help the officer in charge and voluntarily gave him the CCTV footage in accordance with the police's standard operating procedures and after we received the necessary data protection form.

"We understand that seven weeks after receiving the CCTV footage the police had still not reviewed it and now understand from the officer in charge that the matter is in fact likely to be closed."

Hackney councillors will consider the case on Tuesday.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT