WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT. Eight men have been convicted after raping a British teenager in Magaluf, a holiday resort that attracts millions of people looking to let their hair down in the sun each year.
Cheap prices and the promise of sunshine have attracted British teenagers to Magaluf for decades, but scratch the surface and you’ll find a seedy and sometimes criminal underbelly.
Eight men have been sentenced to a total of 73 years after gang-raping a British teenager in a Magaluf hotel in 2023. She was so incapacitated that she went from a semi-conscious state to a fully unconscious state during the horrific attack, which was described as “particularly degrading and humiliating intimacy and violence”. At one point, one of the attackers even came to the hallway of the BH Mallorca Resort and offered passersby “free sex” with the unconscious 18-year-old girl.
The dubious nickname ‘Shagaluf’ has long been associated with the holiday spot, and it more than sets the tone: people visit for fun in the sun, no strings attached. It’s a place to go crazy. But the advent of the so-called “manosphere” has introduced a repugnant caveat to hedonism: women are viewed as “clean objects,” regardless of consent.
READ MORE: Moment: the British teenager who was raped by a Magaluf gang is rescued and the ‘wolf pack’ is caughtREAD MORE: Attackers ‘laughed and spat’ at British woman during horrific gang rape in Magaluf
The men convicted of attacking the British teenager were not a group of friends and did not even know each other before the sick crime they filmed. The horrific group attack took place on August 14, 2023, and the men pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. The five rapists accepted prison sentences of nine to 11 years for sexual assault, and three received longer prison sentences because they repeated their crimes. The three men who did not participate in the sexual attack but filmed it were sentenced to prison terms of two years and three months.
The incapacitated teenager was spat on, hit, slapped and raped repeatedly, while some men laughed and filmed with their mobile phones “several videos focusing on the young woman’s private parts in which they appeared forcing her to perform sexual acts.” All of the men were between 18 and 26 years old at the time of their arrests. A security guard arriving for his shift found the victim sobbing on the floor of the hotel lobby and quickly reported the crime to the police.
Investigative journalist Ellie Flynn exposed the casual and implicit rape culture that can be found among party-goers on the Magaluf strip in her harrowing and unforgettable documentary for Channel 4, ‘Magaluf Undercover: Predators and Parties’. The doctor followed Ellie and fellow journalist Emily Birtley undercover for three nights, where they bravely posed as drunk or vulnerable tourists to expose predatory behavior on the strip, clubs and beach.
The results were ominous to say the least. One clip showed Ellie lying on a sun lounger, pretending to be incapacitated, when two men approached her. One said to him: “Are you okay? Do you want to talk for a little while?” When she responds, “I’m fine,” he continues to bombard her, saying, “You’re my last chance, do you want to kiss a little?”
Ellie gave him a clear “No,” but he didn’t leave her alone. Instead, he went to recruit another man, informed him in Spanish, “She’s completely lost,” and then told him, “Let’s go for it.” Then, another third man approached the undercover journalist on the sun lounger and said, “If you want, I can keep you company.”
This interaction “really scared” Ellie, she admitted in the documentary, “she had seen the first two together,” she said, “but the sudden appearance of another, and having no idea at the time if they were together, was enough for her to tell security to take me away.
“I leave the beach upset and scared, feeling as if I had experienced an orchestrated attempt to attack alone drunk women on a night out in Magaluf. Surprisingly, this was not an isolated incident, but a pattern that emerged over the course of my three nights in the resort town.”
Discussing the horrific case in which the eight men were sentenced and the dangers that resorts like Magaluf can present with the Mirror, Ellie says: “It’s so horrible, isn’t it? I guess first impressions are: I’m so sorry for that girl, for what she’s been through.
“Having been on these holidays when I was younger, and in similar places, I really understand some of the problematic culture there. “These holidays, unfortunately, can create a breeding ground for this type of behavior, because there are young people who are particularly vulnerable, perhaps out and about for the first time, with their friends, trying to have a good time, drinking, trying to party.
“And unfortunately, there are predatory people who seek to take advantage of those vulnerabilities. I think what’s so shocking about this case is that it’s not the first of these horrible gang rapes. I think it says a lot about this toxic culture that eight people were involved in that.”
Worryingly, Ellie reveals that when she was working on her documentary, she discovered that “a large percentage” of men surveyed believe that if a woman just stands near you then “they might be interested in sex.”
He added: “It was so shocking. I think there’s this assumption that if you’re on this holiday, if you’re out with your friends having a good time, having a drink, somehow that makes you constantly available for sex, even if you’re unconscious.” [Even if] “Someone doesn’t give any sign that it’s what you want, there are people out there who will take advantage of you just being there.”
The reaction of some to his documentary was itself bleak and sparked a wave of victim-blaming. “I had people respond to me on Instagram and say, ‘Well, you know, why would you go to a place like Magaluf if you weren’t prepared to experience something like that?’ And I think it shows that we have a long way to go in terms of really stopping violence against women and girls.”
Dr Charlotte Proudman, a lawyer and academic specializing in women’s rights, tells the Mirror that the rise of the “manosphere” advocating extreme interpretations of masculinity online has only added fuel to the fire in resorts such as Magaluf and, in her opinion, its impact can be clearly seen in this shocking gang rape case. “What we are seeing in places like Magaluf is the collision of toxic online misogyny with a Christmas culture of excess, where alcohol, group dynamics and anonymity encourage some men to act with shocking entitlement towards women’s bodies,” she tells The Mirror.
“The influence of the ‘manosphere’ has normalized the dehumanization of women and the idea that sexual assault is a form of male bonding or status,” explains Dr. Proudman. “The fact that some perpetrators even film these attacks is deeply disturbing; it shows that for some men, sexual violence is not only committed but performed for an audience for entertainment purposes.
“This is not about lowering inhibitions during the holidays, this is about a culture that still allows misogyny and sexual violence to be trivialized, excused and, in some cases, celebrated.”
Ellie echoes these sentiments, telling the Mirror that in the age of algorithms creating echo chambers, “we have never seen a greater divide between young men and women and their views and experiences.
“There was a period where I think I felt like things were going in the right direction,” he notes. “You know, we were taking women seriously, listening to their stories and saying all the right things to try to combat violence against women and girls and stop this kind of insidious abuse. But at the same time, there’s the rise of certain influencers and the manosphere and this narrative that young boys are isolated and don’t know how to treat girls, and are afraid to make any approach. We have these two conversations happening simultaneously and taking people in completely different directions. I think that’s where things come. are now particularly worrying.
He added that “on the one hand there are young men” who hear a message and “are almost justified in some cases in abusing women and in this mistreatment of women and in degrading them, because there are people, there are high-profile figures, who have made them feel that it is okay to do that.”
Ellie continued: “It’s clear that we need to have conversations that include both sides of this argument. I have two sons and I don’t want them to grow up feeling like they’re inherently bad because they’re men, that’s not true, and I think somewhere along the way there’s a narrative that some young people have learned to believe, so things have gone wrong in the sense that things have gone that way, but it also ignores the very real epidemic of violence against women and girls and highlights those issues. It’s not the answer. We should be able to do both. things at the same time.”
If something sexual happened to you without your consent, or you are unsure, you can speak to Rape Crisis England & Wales. It doesn’t matter when it happened.
If you need help, contact Rape Crisis’ 24-hour sexual abuse helpline. You can contact them at any time, day or night, all year round, on 0808 500 2222.
Magaluf Undercover: Predators and Parties is available to watch on Channel 4 On Demand
