CCTV showing woman’s drink being spiked is a dramatisation

16 September 2021
What was claimed

CCTV footage depicts a woman’s drink being spiked at a bar. She begins to feel dizzy and is led out by the two men who are thought to have spiked her.

Our verdict

The footage isn’t real. It’s a staged performance set up by a social media influencer.

A Facebook post shows what appears to be CCTV footage of a woman having her drink spiked in a bar. 

The film shows two men target the woman. One distracts her while the other slips a substance into her glass. 

Subtitles on the video claim the woman begins to feel dizzy at which point the men lead her out of the bar and into the back of a car, before she is rescued by a group of women. 

A caption alongside says “Absolute scum bags”. 

While the video portrays an important danger, the footage isn't real. 

It was produced by influencer Prince EA and originally published on his Facebook channel where he stated that the video, which is pinned on his page, is for entertainment purposes only and that no one was harmed in the making of it. However, this disclaimer is not visible when viewing direct links to the video itself.

The video was also posted on YouTube video production channel Spencer Sharp, who claim to have filmed and edited the footage (you can find the credit in the video’s description). Spencer Sharp has been credited on a number of other Prince EA videos.     

Another recent video posted by Prince EA (which attempts to warn that children shouldn’t be left alone by a pool) uses the same format and music as the video in the bar. Tellingly, both videos start with footage captured by cameras with the same name and similar time stamps.

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