Chloe Ayling: My Unbelievable Kidnapping
Giving her first documentary interview since her abductors' conviction, Chloe Ayling revisits the story of her time in captivity and tries to come to terms with what took place, the media reaction and why many people refused to believe her.
In the summer of 2017, it was reported that twenty-year-old glamour model, Chloe Ayling, had been kidnapped in Italy by an International criminal gang known as Black Death. Turning up for what she believed to be a photoshoot in Milan, Chloe was grabbed from behind, drugged and bundled into a bag before being taken to a remote farmhouse and handcuffed to a chest of drawers. There, she was told she had six days before she would be sold as sex slave as part of a dark web auction. Despite the terrifying circumstances, Chloe was able to convince her captors to let her walk free and into the hands of the local authorities.
However, in the immediate aftermath, with the Italian police investigation still ongoing, Chloe became the subject of global media speculation. Were her abductors really part of a sinister sex slavery ring? How did she persuade them to let her go? And why did Chloe seem so unaffected by what she'd been through? Then, ahead of the court case, as the perpetrators' own version of events was reported, the public were left questioning whether the crime was in fact a publicity stunt to further Chloe's modelling career. Her kidnapper, Lukasz Herba and his brother Michal Herba were subsequently found guilty by an Italian court and jailed.
Eight years on, Chloe Ayling now wants to challenge any remaining doubters and finally put the past behind her. Through probing interviews with those involved, the series separates fact from perception and looks at the press coverage of this extraordinary case, the public reaction and asks how a survivor became a suspect.
