Woman who was raped by Met Police officer speaks out: ‘I had to tell the truth’
Lauren Taylor has bravely waived her anonymity to speak of her horrific ordeal
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A teenager has described how she was taken for a McDonalds milkshake by a Metropolitan police officer, shortly after he raped her against a tree.
Lauren Taylor, who has bravely waived her anonymity, was just 16 when then-police constable Adam Provan invited her on a cinema date in 2010, but instead raped her in woods and a children’s playground.
It took a year for Ms Taylor to tell anyone what had happened to her, and many more years before she went to police to report him.
She said she felt compelled to act after becoming a mother at the age of 22 and watching a television documentary about the late Jimmy Savile.
Provan, 44, has now been jailed for 16 years with an additional eight years on extended licence after being found guilty of eight counts of rape against Ms Taylor and another Met Police officer.
Ms Taylor said she agreed to a date with Provan, then 31, after he told her he was a 22-year-old police officer.
Instead of going to the cinema he drove to a country park, and had sex with her in woodland even though she repeatedly said no.
She said: “Basically he raped me. I remember holding on to the tree. I was kind of hugging the tree like emotional support, pretended I was anywhere else in the world but back there. I remember it can’t have been long, but it felt like a long time.”
Afterwards he acted “like nothing had just happened”, and drove to a McDonald’s and a children’s playground, where he forced himself on her again.
Ms Taylor said: “I remember in the far distance there was a crowd of people. I was just praying that maybe someone would see me, someone would see what was going on.”
Later she found out he was actually aged 31, and for years she assumed he had lied about being a police officer too.
She said: “I was told by police after they arrested him. I was really shocked, really disgusted to find out that he was working for the Metropolitan Police.”
On her decision to report him, she said: “I felt like maybe the only way I’m ever going to deal with it is by talking about it. Talking about it and doing something about it.”
Giving evidence in court was “very traumatic” and “like repeating a nightmare over and over again”.
But she said: “I just had to keep going. I had to tell the truth.”
She went on: “It was in 2022 when I was contacted by police to be told that he’d won an appeal. He was out.
“The police came to me and said ‘Would you do a retrial? This is to do with you. This is your choice. We’re not forcing you into anything’.
“I already knew what my answer was going to be. It was always going to be yes. I was always going to fight so hard for my justice.
“I think the more because of who he was, being a Metropolitan Police officer. He misused his job and treated people terribly. I had to do everything I could to get him back in prison.”
She added: “I don’t feel like I’ve done anything amazing. I just feel like I’ve done what I needed to do for me.”