Sign up for our breaking news emails to get free, real-time breaking news straight to your inbox.
Sign up for our free emails with breaking news
TThink back to the story of Chloe Ayling in 2017. You know, the “model who faked her own kidnapping.” You might remember how people fixated on her going “shoe shopping” with her kidnapper. That she “smiled too much” when she got home. That she wore outfits that were “too revealing.” What we don’t know is that she was injected with ketamine, held hostage in a remote house, and told she would be sold as a sex slave. What we forget is the fact that the man who kidnapped her was found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
It is this gap in our collective memory that the BBC’s new drama about the case seeks to fill. Kidnapped: The story of Chloe Ayling is a forensic study of Ayling’s kidnapping in July 2017. The six-part drama, in which Ayling is played by actress Nadia Parkes, tells how the then 20-year-old model was booked for a photo shoot in Milan and, upon arriving at the studio, was drugged, gagged, handcuffed and stuffed into the trunk of a car. Ayling spent six days in captivity in the Italian countryside. Her abductor, Lukasz Herba, told her that a mafia-like crime gang called the Black Death – later revealed to be a figment of his imagination – was selling her on the dark web. They took a trip to a nearby town to buy supplies, and during the trip he told her she was being watched by a gang. Eventually he decided to release her on the condition that she paid her own ransom and agreed to be his girlfriend in the UK. He dropped her off at the British consulate in Milan. After an intensive police interview in Italy – the officers enjoyed the shopping trip – Ayling was allowed to go home.
But when Ayling returned, she found that her ordeal was not over; in fact, it had only just begun. The British press hounded her, vilified her for not looking traumatised enough, and mocked the specifics of the story. A story spread across the country that the whole thing had been a publicity stunt planned by Ayling, partly because she had been photographed holding hands with Herba while shopping. What the series shows is how she was actually shaking with fear as they walked hand in hand through the streets, considering whether to run away. Kidnapped shows in detail how Ayling was forced to fake her affection for Herba for fear that he would kill her.
Screenwriter Georgia Lester says reading Ayling’s 2018 book Kidnappedshe was amazed at the “intricacies of what she had actually experienced compared to what was being written about it in the press.” Then, as she dug deeper and read the police reports, she found the story “more and more infuriating.” “Oh my God, we have to put this on screen,” she remembers thinking.
Even Ayling himself was astonished when some of the details emerged in the series. In episode six, we see Herba’s 2018 trial unfold – Ayling wasn’t there and she had never read the transcripts. They show how Herba had jumped on the publicity stunt story that was becoming increasingly popular in the UK and used it in his own defence. Ayling was in on the whole plan, he claimed. His story was quickly debunked, not least because he was unable to tell it himself and regularly got tangled up in his own lies. He was eventually sentenced to 16 years for kidnapping and blackmail. His brother Michal, who acted as his accomplice, was tried and given a similar sentence the following year.
The worst media treatment of Ayling can be summed up in a brutal interrogation by Piers Morgan that was broadcast on television. Good morning, Great Britain in October, less than three months after Ayling’s escape. The interview is recreated word for word in the series. “If you’re doing media interviews that you’re paid to do and you’re writing a book for thousands of pounds before there’s even been a trial, then I think we have the right to ask you difficult questions,” Morgan barks. The interview essentially served as a green light for trolls to vent their anger at Ayling, and she received messages calling her a liar and telling her to kill herself.
It was only years later that it became shockingly clear that Ayling was in a lose-lose situation: if she didn’t talk about the trauma, no one would believe her; if she did, no one would believe her anyway. “Ironically, it’s a vicious circle,” says Lester. “The more Chloe pushes and the more she tells people what happened to her, the more people doubt her because they think she’s after fame and fortune.”
Although no one seemed to call it out at the time, the misogyny behind Ayling’s treatment is glaring in retrospect – because she was a glamour model, it was claimed she had “provoked it”. “We are so quick to judge women and girls in our society,” says Lester. “I’ve worked in reality TV, so I know how quick the press is to put women down or put them up, depending on what sells the papers.”
And there were strong elements of classism too, as Ayling was condemned for making money out of her trauma by taking part in interviews. “Why shouldn’t she make money?” asks Lester. “This is a young woman with financial obligations whose only means of income and money-making was taken away from her because she had endured the most horrific ordeal.” Lester points out that when Ayling returned to the UK, she had bills to pay and was offered money “beyond her wildest dreams” to do an interview with The Daily Mail or continue Dr Phil“And there were plenty of other people – tabloids and friends of hers – who made money off her,” she says. “Why shouldn’t she be compensated for what she went through?”
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/month after free trial. Plan automatically renews until cancelled.
Try for free
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/month after free trial. Plan automatically renews until cancelled.
Try for free
In this respect, Lester sees depressing parallels between the treatment of Ayling and that of Jay Slater’s family, who were mocked for being working class and accused of using a GoFundMe appeal to “line their pockets” after the British teenager disappeared in Tenerife. “I didn’t pay any attention to the gossip surrounding Jay Slater because I have experience of working on Kidnapped”, she says.
Who knows how a victim of trauma should react until you experience it yourself?
There were also similarities to the 2007 Amanda Knox case. Knox spent nearly four years in prison in Italy after being wrongly convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher, an exchange student she shared a flat with in Perugia. At the time, Italian prosecutors leaked stories of “foxy Knoxy” doing “cartwheels” in custody, and pictures of her smiling were everywhere. Like Knox, Ayling’s every move was dissected and used against her: too smiling, too casual, too composed. The British press and public clamored to see a woman crying and dishevelled. Instead, they saw someone who remained unflappable in interviews, who beamed as she told the camera, “I feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour,” and who looked impeccable at every press appearance.
“Who knows how a victim of trauma should react until you’ve lived through it yourself?” says Lester, adding that what we saw in the press at the time wasn’t the whole story. She points out that the British media actually didn’t see Ayling in the immediate aftermath, despite her being questioned in Italy for weeks after the abduction. “We have transcripts that show her crying and having a panic attack during her police interview,” says Lester. “For three weeks she locked herself in her hotel room in Italy, terrified that she would be abducted again, living in a state of absolute fear and paranoia. Then she came back to the UK and was hounded by the press and paparazzi.”
We should focus, says Lester, on how We Treat the victims – as opposed to their behavior. “This is a traumatized young woman who has been kidnapped, and as she walks her dog, random men jump on her and take photos,” she says.
Lester wants viewers to believe Chloe Ayling after the series. “And I want people to think before they jump into speculation, to read beyond the headlines and think more about things before they go to the pub and laugh at other people’s misfortune,” she says. Lester also urges people not to judge someone just because they don’t cry. As Ayling herself said this week: “I was glad to be home. I was glad that was over, so why wouldn’t I smile?”
All episodes of Kidnapped are available now on BBC iPlayer and will air on BBC Three from 9pm on August 14.
