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| Guilty: Orlando |
Two post graduate students from wealthy Italian families, who had sex with a drunken young woman in a filthy maintenance cupboard in a West End nightclub, have been convicted of rape.
They were both caught on CCTV laughing and exchanging high-fives after raping the “ten out of ten” drunk 25 year-old victim in the Toy Room nightclub under the London Palladium.
Just six minutes after the woman met Ferdinando Orlando, 25 and Lorenzo Costanzo, 26, they were having sex in the secure room near the toilets.
Orlando, of St. George’s Square, Pimlico, is currently studying a post-graduate degree in International Law and Costanzo is taking a post-graduate masters degree in Business & Management.
At Isleworth Crown Court Costanzo collapsed in the dock and struck his head after hearing the guilty verdicts and was taken to hospital by ambulance.
They will both be sentenced at a later date to be fixed.
Both were unanimously convicted of two counts of raping the petite woman in the early hours of February 26, 2017, despite insisting she consented to joint sex after swapping kisses with them on the dance floor.
It can now be revealed for the first time 230 mls of blood, equivalent to a full coke can, was drained from an expanding vulval haematoma between the victim’s legs after the rape.
A doctor reported he had never seen the “unusually severe injury” in 2,000 such examinations.
Judge Giles Curtis-Raleigh announced today: “Allegations of this type attract a significant sentence of imprisonment.”
Both students were represented by QC’s over the course of three trials and it is rumoured their expensive defence team was funded by a billionaire relative.
Prosecutor Allison Hunter QC told the jury the nightclub CCTV showed the three meeting: “They can be seen to pass her from one to the other, each of them taking it in turns to kiss her.”
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| Guilty: Costanzo |
Orlando then leads the woman to the maintenance room as she holds onto his waist, with Costanzo behind, steering her as she leans into him, the court heard.
“I was in the middle of them so it was hard to get away from them,” the woman told the jury. “They were the support for me walking.”
All three emerge sixteen minutes later, with the woman sandwiched between the defendants. “Orlando can be seen to re-arrange her dress, which was twisted and raised at the front, to cover her modesty,” said the prosecutor.
“The pair propel her towards the ladies’ toilet, where they open the door and put her inside and turn and run down the corridor.
“They ran straight up the stairs to the outside, where they can be seen hugging, high-fiving each other, strong arming, laughing and looking at what appear to be images or videos on a mobile phone.
“They engage in gestures simulating sexual intercourse and oral intercourse and appear to laugh and congratulate each other.
“It is the prosecution case that she was not able to consent to what she sustained at the will of these two defendants,” added Ms Hunter.
“Her capacity to consent was a matter of supreme indifference and irrelevance to them in their pursuit of their own sexual gratification.”
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| Orlando during the trial |
The complainant told the jury she has no memory of the incident, having begun drinking unlimited Prosecco at 11am, plus free shots and vodka at the club, where she was celebrating a girl friend’s birthday.
“I remember being very drunk and falling over a lot and then I was in the toilets of the club in so much pain, not wanting to get out and then I remember being on the street, sitting on the sidewalk.”
After a French couple helped her home to Ealing the woman was taken to hospital for an injury between her legs. “I was very swollen down there and bruised,” she said.
“I was very swollen, I could barely walk and there was a lot of bruising. I was very scared.”
As well as the painful swelling doctors also noted three bruises between her legs, bruising to her bum, shoulder and leg, plus a mystery love bite to her neck she had no recollection of.
She told police on a one to ten scale of drunkenness she was a “ten”, adding: “I do have a history of kissing randomners when I’m drunk.”
When cross-examined she admitted the CCTV showed her grinding her rear into Costanzo on the dance floor and flicking her long hair.
Orlando claims they flirted with each other and exchanged compliments, but the woman told the court she has no memory of their conversation.
She agreed the CCTV shows them “kissing passionately”, but denied groping him between the legs.
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| Costanzo Was Hospitalised After Verdicts |
Once in the maintenance room Orlando claims the woman had consensual sex first with him and then Costanzo.
Orlando’s QC Sarah Elliott put it to the woman her behaviour was “receptive” and “enthusiastic” and that she was “moaning” with pleasure.
The complainant maintained she could remember nothing and the lawyer suggested the CCTV outside the room revealed her true feelings.
“You appear to be smiling. You gave them the impression you were having a good time.”
Before the trial the students’ legal team made repeated applications to declare evidence inadmissible and even halt proceedings altogether.
Ms Elliott said: “We can see her behaviour in the club, enjoying herself. She had obviously been drinking.
“We are concerned the jeopardy these two young men of good character find themselves in.
“She has no memory of the maintenance room.
“His mother is here. This is a very close Italian family. She is depressed, tearful, is not sleeping and is self-harming by scratching her arms.
“She is a likely candidate for a nervous breakdown, if not on the verge of it.”
“We have got one view that these are arrogant, aggressive, uncaring men from an aggressive prosecution.”
Orlando himself said during the first aborted trial: “I only live to see the end of this. My whole life is on hold. It effects my studies and results because of the strain I am under.
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| Sordid: Maintenance Room |
“I feel I have done nothing wrong. I have been crying this week.”
Costanzo’ QC Sallie Bennett-Jenkins said her client was locked up for a week after his arrest: “The shock and anxiety that has flown from that has remained with him.
“His parents have been at his side at all stages. He has been distressed at each and every consultation. There are real and significant effects on this young man.
“He does not sleep. He has lost a considerable amount of weight and is highly stressed and anxious.”
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