Woman drugged and raped by husband who invited strangers to abuse her speaks for first time
Warning: This report and article by ITV News Correspondent Sejal Karia contains details you may find distressing
For years, Laura Bishop lived behind a mask. Hiding not only her identity, but the horrors of what had happened to her behind closed doors.
Now, for the first time, she is revealing her face and telling her story publicly.
It is a story of unimaginable betrayal. Of a husband who drugged and raped his wife while she was unconscious, and invited other men into their family home to do the same.
And of a woman who, five years after escaping her abuser, is still fighting for justice.
"I've had to wear a mask all the way through the relationship," Laura told me in an exclusive ITV Exposure interview.
"It's my opportunity to finally be free from the abuse and control.”
Her decision to waive her legal right to anonymity has not been easy. But she hopes that by showing her face, she might finally help identify the men who sexually abused her and have never been brought to justice.
"The most important thing is outing [these] men and putting names to faces… This is my opportunity for my voice to be heard.”
To the outside world, Daniel Bishop appeared to be a loving husband and father. Family photographs and home videos showed what looked like an ordinary family life.
But Laura says the reality inside their home was very different and that her husband was violent and controlling.
She told me her husband was in charge of her prescription medication. In one home video, Bishop can be seen urging her to take it.
"But Laura, what I'm trying to do now is make sure everything's ok", he can be heard telling her. Adding, "So listen, you have your medication because if you don't have your medication, you're gonna have a real, real big problem tomorrow".
It sounds like concern. Laura now believes it was a sinister part of how Bishop kept her sedated so he and other men could rape her.
On some occasions, Bishop poured powdered prescription medication into her drinks to render her unconscious. Laura told me he later used car wheel cleaner containing the toxic substance GHB, a powerful sedative sometimes used to facilitate sexual assault.
For years, she had no idea what was being done to her.
Until one night, when she woke up.
Laura remembers sitting at the breakfast bar in her kitchen with her husband when he suggested they have a drink together.
"He said, 'I haven't seen you for ages. Can we have a drink?’
"He poured me a gin and tonic. I couldn't see what he was doing. I never thought I'd need to watch what he did with my drink.
"I don't remember finishing it.”
Hours later she came round.
"I woke up on the bed. Completely undressed. Naked. And being raped by a stranger.
"I immediately looked to the right, and Dan was stood there; my husband was stood there in the doorway.
"And I can remember the first thing I thought was, I'm going to be strangled and murdered. But I started moving myself very quickly back up the bed and the man got up and ran off.”
Terrified, Laura managed to escape. But what she had witnessed that night was only the beginning of her understanding of what her husband had been doing to her.
He admitted to rape and administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence. He was jailed for 14 years and eight months.
"If you're a kind and decent person, your mind isn't going to sit there imagining all of these horrors," Laura said.
"You couldn't fabricate it; you couldn't make this story up in your head if you tried. Despite how abusive he was, I never once thought that he was drugging me.”
But for Laura, his conviction did not bring an end to the questions.
Who were the other men? How many had there been? And why had they not been caught?
Desperate for answers, Laura began investigating her own abuse.
Slowly unravelling some of the horror he had inflicted.
Without his knowledge, she gathered evidence and recorded telephone conversations with her former husband while he was in prison.
What she discovered was devastating.
In one recording, Bishop admitted that the stranger Laura had woken up to find raping her was not the only man he had invited into their home.
"It was seven men in total," he told her.
"The last one came twice. So it was eight separate occasions, with seven different men.”
Bishop also admitted livestreaming the sexual abuse online. It meant that while she lay unconscious, the abuse was not only being carried out inside her own home, but potentially watched by others elsewhere.
Five years after her escape, the other men have still not been caught and still walk free. Laura fears they may pose a danger to other women.
Newly obtained data records, seen by ITV News, raise questions about the police investigation and whether more could have been done to identify the men involved. The documents reveal that Laura told officers her former husband had used swinging websites - designed to connect people seeking consensual sexual encounters - to find the men who would come to their home and rape her.
Laura accepts that police were dealing with a form of offending that was far less understood at the time.
But she believes crucial opportunities to gather evidence and identify the other perpetrators were missed. Among her concerns is the bed on which she was attacked, which she says was not seized for forensic examination for years, despite her requests.
She believes potential evidence was lost.
For the first time, ITV News has learned of a significant delay by police.
They seized her bedsheets in August 2021, which was the night she woke to a stranger raping her, and the night her husband was arrested.
But they have now admitted they didn't test those sheets for DNA until April 2023, 20 months later.
It could have provided potentially crucial evidence much earlier.
She says she’s now more determined to hold them accountable.
"Cases like this weren't heard of, so people within the police force weren't necessarily trained in what to do," she told me.
"That being said, there were mistakes that were made. The police didn’t collect all of the CCTV from the roads around my house.
"The bed frame wasn't fingerprinted...I thought that was shocking, and I was told, 'Well, it's too late now because other people would have touched the bed frame since'."
“I never believed that, so I put it in the loft and kept it in the loft for years. And then eventually when a new investigation team took over, they took the bed frame.”
But Laura's fight for answers goes far beyond her own abuse.
"I want justice, from the evidence that was available that night I woke," she said.
"That's what I feel I deserve. But not just do I deserve that…. I am convinced, because he would go missing at night, that these men potentially have wives, that they are sat with right now, who are being abused....These mistakes by the police have left other women in danger as well.”
For Laura, the failure to identify the other men has left her with the knowledge that those who took part in her abuse may still be living ordinary lives with their identities unknown.
And she fears her case may be far from isolated. Laura now believes what happened to her was not simply the actions of one abusive husband, but part of something much wider.
She said she tried to raise the alarm after her husband's conviction in 2022.
“I wrote to multiple news outlets to say that there is a circle in England of men that are harming other women, but nobody listened," she told me.
Her experience raises disturbing questions about how men are finding one another online, arranging sexual assaults and abusing women who are drugged or unconscious.
Laura believes more needs to be done to uncover these men, identify those responsible and prevent other women from suffering similar abuse.
"It's not just about justice for me," she said.
"It's making sure other women aren't at harm as we speak.”
For years, Laura kept what happened to her a secret, so it did not impact any police investigation to find the other perpetrators. Now, with the support of her parents, she has made the deeply personal decision to give up that anonymity.
She knows speaking publicly will mean reliving some of the most traumatic moments of her life. But she also knows remaining silent has not brought her the answers she needs.
There are men out there, she says, who have so far escaped justice. For a woman whose husband took away her control over her own body, speaking out is also about reclaiming something he denied her for years.
Her freedom. Her identity. And her voice.
"This is my chance for my voice to be heard," she said.
"And for true justice to begin.”
In a statement, Avon and Somerset Police said: "We’re sorry Laura feels let down by aspects of the overall investigation. One man has received a significant prison sentence for the crimes he committed against her, but a thorough investigation continues, led by specially-trained detectives.
"We will always respect a victim’s decision as to whether they wish to waive their automatic right to anonymity.
"In recent years, policing has undergone a fundamental transformation to the way rape investigations are carried out through the rollout of national programme Operation Soteria. The perpetrators of rape and serious sexual offences are placed at the forefront of our investigations, and this approach ensures victims are believed and better supported throughout with enhanced engagement.
"We are clear – the victim is not on trial or under investigation. "
ITV News understands identification of the offenders has been a priority since the outset, and this was not delayed by the investigation into offences committed by Bishop.
The bed sheets were among the items seized as part of the force's initial enquiries, and they were submitted for forensic testing in April 2023, as part of a wider forensic strategy. Forensic enquiries and submissions were carried out from the outset of the investigation to try and identify further perpetrators, and an internal police review found no CCTV opportunities were missed.
It's understood a number of digital enquiries have been completed to ensure all available evidence is collected. This includes in response to information provided by the victim and other parties.
The force is unable to comment further as it is a live investigation.
ITV News contacted Daniel Bishop, who is in prison, for comment, but he did not respond.
To get in contact with us confidentially about this story email us at yourvoice@itv.com
If you, or someone you know, has been a victim of rape or sexual violence, there is support out there to help:
Rape Crisis (England and Wales)
Rape Crisis provides specialist information and support to all those affected by rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment and all other forms of sexual violence and abuse in England and Wales. Helpline: 0808 500 2222 (24/7)
The Survivors Trust
The Survivors Trust is the largest umbrella agency for specialist rape and sexual abuse services in the UK. Helpline: 0808 801 0818 | Text: 07860 022956
Survivors UK – Male Rape and Sexual Abuse Support
Survivors UK has support for any man, boy or non-binary person who has ever experienced unwanted sexual activity. Visit the website to chat through webchat, or text 020 3322 1860
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