Rape victim ‘humiliated by Australian cricketer’s game of sexual conquest’

A rape victim left with facial paralysis and post-traumatic stress disorder says she is “humiliated” her attacker, Australian cricketer Alex Hepburn, treated the matter as a “game”.

Sarah, whose real name has been withheld to protect her privacy, was raped in 2017 by Hepburn, 23, after he found her asleep on a mattress in his Worcester apartment in the UK after she had had consensual sex with his former teammate, Joe Clarke.

Sarah told the BBC it was “so humiliating” to learn afterwards in court that Hepburn raped her as part of a “game” the pair set up on the WhatsApp messaging service to sleep with as many women as possible.

Sarah said she believed Hepburn, whose arrogance was blasted by a judge, probably thought she was “grateful” for attack.

Choking back emotion, Sarah relived for the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme her trauma from the night of the attack. 

She said after pushing Hepburn off she went to Mr Clarke, who by that point had passed out in his bathroom, telling him "again and again and again: your friend has had sex with me”.

"Once I'd grabbed my clothes, I ran out to the street and stopped a passerby," she said.

"I told her everything that happened and she rang the police."

Sarah then attended a police station where officers contacted her mother.

“I remember thinking that I didn’t want people knowing,” she said.

Sarah revealed she had consequently developed PTSD, as well as Bell’s palsy, a partial paralysis of the face, as a result of the attack.

She said the attack has left her unable to pursue her dreams of travel and further education after university.

Hepburn, who had been playing cricket in the UK, was found guilty in Hereford Crown Court in April and last month sentenced to five years in prison.

Judge Jim Tindal told the "immature" cricketer he and a former teammate had agreed a "pathetic sexist game to collect as many sexual encounters as possible".

He added: "You probably thought it was laddish behaviour at the time.

"In truth it was foul sexism.

"It demeaned women and trivialised rape - a word you personally threw around lightly

"Only now do you realise how serious rape is."

His barrister Michelle Heeley QC said her client had expressed remorse.