Woman raped by three men after exclusive Henley Regatta party

People on canoes during day three of the 2017 Henley Royal Regatta alongside the river Thames. Photo / Getty

A woman was raped by three men after partying in an exclusive enclosure at the Henley Regatta.

The victim was partying into the early hours of the morning at an exclusive riverside Chinawhite enclosure where DJ Pete Tong had been performing before she was attacked alongside a car.

The young woman left the Chinawhite enclosure, an exclusive £50-a-ticket afterparty on the banks of the river Thames, between midnight and 2.30am on Sunday with a group of people who she had met inside the party section.

Police said she walked towards a car parked in a quiet, residential street in the south Oxfordshire town where she was then raped. Three men got out of the vehicle after the attack.

A member of the public later spotted the traumatised woman close to the Three Horseshoes public house in Reading Road, Henley-on-Thames just before 2.30am and called police.

Officers are appealing for specific witnesses including the drivers and passengers of a dark, metallic car which stopped outside the pub to check on the welfare of the victim and another car which also stopped.

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: "Between 12am and 2.30am on Sunday the victim, a woman aged in her 20s left the Chinawhite enclosure at the Henley Regatta with a party of people who she had met there. She walked to a residential street in the Harpsden Road and Reading Road area of the town to a car where she was subsequently raped outside the vehicle. The three men then left in the vehicle."

Detective Chief Inspector Lis Knight, from Thames Valley Police, said: "Detectives are investigating the circumstances which occurred in the early hours of Sunday in a residential street, and work is ongoing with the victim. Incidents of this nature are rare in the area and we are working to establish what happened.

"The victim is being supported by specially-trained officers at this time.

"I would like to ask the public to think back to the early hours of Sunday morning - did you see a woman with a group of white men and a car in a residential street?

"I would also like to speak to the drivers and anyone who was an occupant in the cars which stopped in Reading Road where the woman, was found distressed."