Lady Penny Lancaster-Stewart was drugged and raped as a teenager.
The 46-year-old model broke down in tears on ‘Loose Women’ on Thursday (19.10.17) as she recalled being sexually assaulted by a unknown man in the modelling industry, who claimed he had more photography work lined up for her in order to coax her into his house, after he spiked her drink during a meeting.
Speaking on the lunchtime show, she said: "He was just a client that I had worked with and he promised that I could meet other people and so I was just naive and I trusted him. Like with the series ‘Liar’, my drink was drugged and I can’t remember much of what happened.
"I just know that he was on top of me and enjoying the experience but I certainly wasn’t. And I don’t really remember much more but I was too afraid to tell anybody …"
Penny – who is married to Sir Rod Stewart and has two children, Alistair, 11, and Aiden, six, with him – wants to encourage anyone – and particularly children – to speak to the police if they fall victim to sexual assault because she regrets burying her experience for so long because the pain just became even more raw for her.
She explained: "I’d never had sex at that point so it was a frightening thing and they have to know they won’t be told off, it’s not their fault. They need to be brave enough to tell the authorities. You end up burying it and pretending that it never happened. As a woman, god forbid any man who tries it on, trust me, they will know about it."
This isn’t the first time she has opened up about being attacked as she previously revealed she was accosted by a man under a subway on her way to school.
She said at the time: "I had a very unfortunate incident. It was a journey on the way to school and I was attacked. It was nothing about the way I looked, I could have been in a short skirt or I could have had thick tights on, it wouldn’t have mattered.
"I had choir practise the day before and they allowed me to go into school later, and I was attacked under a subway. Being tall and strong, I managed to fight off the man who pulled up my skirt and wrestle with me. "
Penny did report the incident to the police but the man was never caught.
Penny Lancaster-Stewart: I was raped as a teen
