Disgraced cricketer Alex Hepburn’s victim reveals her face was paralysed after he orally raped her as part of vile sex game
DISGRACED Alex Hepburn’s victim revealed how her face was left paralysed after the cricketer orally raped her.
The university graduate was left with a frozen face, which was feared to be a stroke, after Hepburn attacked her as part of a vile “sex conquest” game, The Sunday Mirror reports.
Hepburn, 23, was jailed last month after attacking her while she lay in his Worcestershire teammate’s bed.
The victim, whose identity is being protected, went through the ordeal of giving evidence twice after a jury didn’t reach a verdict earlier this year.
Australian Hepburn was given five years at the retrial, which he is now appealing.
Judge Tim Tindal told him he had treated his victim “like a piece of meat” and the “game” on WhatsApp showed his “foul sexism” and “demeaned women and trivialised rape”.
The 23-year-old victim told The Sunday Mirror how she was rushed to the hospital with a suspected stroke four months after she was attacked.
Doctors told her she had a stress-induced condition that temporarily paralyses facial muscles called Bell’s Palsy.
‘MY BODY SHUT DOWN’
She said: “They said after everything I’d been through my body was shutting down.
“As the day went on my eye drooped and the side of my face froze. It took months to go back to normal.
“I had to drink through a straw. It stopped me working. I didn’t want to leave home.”
The victim suffers from PTSD from the attack and the trials as well as losing two stone and enduring crippling panic attacks.
Hepburn, who is now out of contract with Worcestershire, attacked her after she had consensual sex with his teammate Joe Clarke.
Worcester Crown Court heard that a couple of days before the attack, Hepburn, Mr Clarke and another friend known only as Tom, set up the WhatsApp group called ‘Stat Chat’.
He was pawing at my legs, telling me I was beautiful
Hepburn's victim
Members would reveal details of all their sexual encounters with girls known as “freshies or re heats” and rate them based on their performances in bed.
In the group the pals would shamelessly joke about “dragging the birds back” and “raping them” and bragged about getting tested for STIs in the summer.
Jurors heard Hepburn, who thought he was “God’s gift to Worcester”, attacked his victim as he wanted to beat best friend Mr Clarke who had won the “competition” in the previous year.
She met Mr Clarke at a restaurant where she worked at the time and it was only during the trial she discovered she was part of sordid sex game where teammates tried to bed the most women.
The victim went to his flat on April 1, 2017 to have consensual sex when she then woke up to a man performing a sex act on her.
She thought it was the 22-year-old who now plays for Nottinghamshire, but realised it was Hepburn when she heard his Australian accent.
She told the Mail On Sunday: ”I’m sure what he actually thought was, ‘She’ll be grateful for this.’”
She added: “He was pawing at my legs, telling me I was beautiful.
“I remember curling up in the foetal position, not knowing what to do.”
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She managed to lock herself in a bathroom to phone a male friend to get her and as she left she found Mr Clarke slumped near a toilet in another bathroom.
It was two years later that Hepburn was found guilty of one count of oral rape and cleared of one rape charge.
She slammed the court process in which she said jurors hears he was described as a “good round egg” and she was branded as “easy.
RULES OF THE 'STAT CHAT' GROUP
Alex: ‘Rules of the stat game, it starts on the first night Joe returns [from tour].
Alex: ‘Got to be freshies, names, age, black or white, your rating, their rating.
Alex: ‘The loser has to buy dinner and the second loser will have to buy drinks, the winner gets to enjoy a free night.’
Alex: ‘Excited as f**k lads, Clarkey the shags have to be legit? [not prostitutes] may the best man win, P.S. We should probably get tested this summer.’
Joe: ‘No re-heats allowed [having sex with the same person].’
Tom: ‘Joe you only won last year because the heppdog let you three ball [have a threesome] with him.
Alex: ‘There be me dragging them home and you raping them.’
Alex: ‘Can we do nicknames?’
Joe: ‘Yeah, we should, my nickname is king (crown emoji).
Alex: ‘Mine is (battery emoji) because I can go all night #breakthepuss’
Tom: ‘(running man emoji) because I probably be gone home on my own that night.’
Alex: ‘Eyebrows (tick), hair (tick), tan (tick), f**k.
Joe: ‘I won’t have my bed down there, so just bring a mattress. So if we do chop, it will have to be in your bed.
Alex: ‘F**k my boots, we are on.’
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