The kidnap of British model Chloe Ayling: The crime that captured a nation

A British model who hit the headlines after she was kidnapped in Italy in 2017 said she hopes a new drama based on her ordeal will encourage people not to doubt victims.

Chloe Ayling was kidnapped after arriving at an address in Milan, Italy, for a modelling job, having been lured into a fake photoshoot, and was released just days later.

Now, seven years later, her story is to be told in a six-part TV drama.

ITV News looks back at what happened to Chloe - and the media storm that followed.

Who is Chloe Ayling?

Ms Ayling is a 27-year-old British model from Coulsden, south London.

Her modelling career began when she was 18, and, prior to her kidnapping, she was working in London for Phil Green's Supermodel Agency.

"I was at college for three years, studying law, business and psychology, and I had a baby when I was in college," Ms Ayling said on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018.

What happened when she was kidnapped?

In 2017, Ms Ayling, aged 20, was drugged and abducted in Italy having been lured into a fake photoshoot.

She arrived at a Milan address for a modelling job, but was instead bundled into the boot of a car and held in a farmhouse near Turin while a €300,000 (£265,000) ransom was demanded.

In her 2018 memoir, Kidnapped - The Untold Story of My Abduction, she explains how her kidnapper told her she was being auctioned on the Dark Web as a sex slave. If she tried to escape, she'd be killed instantly by agents of the Black Death gang.

Ms Ayling was eventually released six days later at the British consulate in Milan - however, her story became a tabloid obsession and a national conversation.

As told in her memoir, she was accused - by both police and the public - of staging her ordeal and of being involved in a "publicity stunt". The online accusations persist today - all of which Chloe continues to deny.

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Was anyone convicted?

Polish national Lukasz Herba was jailed for 16 years and nine months after an Italian court convicted him of kidnapping Ms Ayling.

Mr Herba had claimed Ms Ayling agreed to the scheme to boost her career.

In a declaration that defendants are permitted to make in Italian courts, Mr Herba claimed to be in love with Ms Ayling and said they had concocted the kidnap plot to help her overcome financial trouble following the birth of her son.

"I never hurt the girl. I was not violent with her," Herba said. "If she felt forced verbally in any way, I am very sorry. But it certainly was not as Chloe has described."

"I was in love and I was hoping that once her fame took off that she would repay me with feelings and we would share the money," he said.

Prosecutor Paolo Storari said in his closing arguments he was seeking a 16-year sentence based on the possibility that Ms Ayling could have died during the kidnapping.

Previous testimony showed the two had met on Facebook and had met at least once in person.

What has she done since her ordeal?

Shortly after her abduction in 2017, Ms Ayling spoke of her "terrifying" experience in a press conference.

"I feared for my life second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour," she said.

In 2018, a year after her kidnapping, Ms Ayling entered the Celebrity Big Brother house and opened up about her ordeal.

She discussed how she tried to convince her captor to let her go.

"He made it out to me it was a massive organisation and he wanted to save me but he couldn’t because there were so many people behind it," Ms Ayling told US reality star Natalie Nunn.

“That was what was scaring me. I thought there was so many people behind this and I had to pay the money otherwise I’m going to die."

Why has a six-part drama been made?

Ms Ayling hopes the new BBC six-part drama, entitled Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story, based on her ordeal will encourage people to "keep an open mind before jumping to conclusions".

“This factual drama follows her terrifying kidnap, her bravery and resilience in captivity, and the subsequent court case that put her kidnappers in jail,” the BBC description of the series says.

"I hope it encourages people not to doubt victims based on the way they react to a traumatic experience, based on the way they dress, their job or what they did to survive," Ms Ayling said ahead of the launch of the series.

"I hope it encourages people to look deeper than headlines, not to judge a situation or story based on what you read, not to be so easily influenced by media and to keep an open mind before jumping to conclusions," she added.

The series, written by Georgia Lester of Killing Eve and Skins, was made in co-operation with Ms Ayling and is based on detailed research, extensive interviews, documented legal proceedings and Chloe’s own book. It will be shown on BBC3 and iPlayer from Wednesday.

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