The story you are about to read is 100% and happened to me in 2016. Trigger warning – I’m questioned by police on rape charges.
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If you want to write AMAZING blog posts
- Don’t get AI to write your blog posts (yet)
- Movie trailers are more interesting than movie credits
I PROMISE I’ll explain the subject line.
The one problem with AI, which by the way I’m a huge fan of, is that it can’t write stories that have happened to it. Yet.
It’s very very good at facts and it CAN write fiction…kind of.
It’ll hit the same beats that you learn in screenwriting and creative writing schools.
But nothing – absolutely NOTHING beats a true to life, honest to goodness story that happened to YOU.
If you want to write killer, engaging blog posts (and social posts, video scripts, sales letters etc.) then you need to write the same stories that people tell at dinner parties.
In 2016, I was invited back to a university graduation reunion.
I’d been a few times in the past, but this year I brought Olivia, my now wife, with me.
However, we almost didn’t make it because I was being questioned by police on rape charges.
Yes – you 100% read that correctly.
I went to university at Southampton Solent University. Affectionately called the “Dimstitute” due to its poor reputation and recent upgrade from poly-tech status.
Southampton is also rough. Like, stabbings in the street and ranked #1 in the UK for sexual assault rough.
We arrived very late Friday evening to our hotel.
Olivia and I zonked out on the bed, after a long day driving, hoping to get a decent night’s sleep before the festivities the next day.
And in the middle of the night, we were awoken by…
A woman in our room, completely naked, asking who we were.
Obviously, we freaked out and started yelling at her to get out. She seemed pretty drunk and we figured we’d somehow left the door unlocked and she’d managed to get in.
After chasing her out of the room, I double checked the lock on the door and checked in with Olivia.
“We did both see that, right?”
We laughed it off, checked the door one last time and attempted to drift back to sleep.
Only to be awoken again a few minutes later by the same woman.
This time, she was ON the bed, crawling on top of it, trying to get under the covers.
I turned the light on and started shouting at her to get out, but after a few seconds, it became pretty apparent that she was out of her head.
Definitely drunk, probably high.
And yes – she was stark bollock naked. The whole kit and caboodle. So to speak.
Olivia and I realised that she was in trouble, disorientated, and drunk. So Olivia led her into the bathroom and found her some of my old clothes to throw on.
I popped my head into the hallway of the hotel, hearing a little commotion.
Two security guards were wandering the passageway, so I shouted over to them.
“Excuse me lads, you wouldn’t happen to be looking for a girl, about 5’6”, blonde hair, totally naked?”
“Ah yes!” one replied “that’s exactly why we’re here. Have you seen her?”
“Yes, she’s in my hotel room now.”
The other security guard piped up “OK, good. We had reports of her walking up and down and of course, a few people have complained.”
They stopped walking towards me and paused a few feet from my door.
I continued “yeah no worries. She’s in here now. We’ve found some clothes for her.”
The first guard spoke up again “Well we have to do patrols like this in pairs. Especially responding to reports of naked women. Because of safe-guarding issues.”
“Makes sense.” I responded, getting a little irate at the lack of action on the staff’s behalf to remove her from my room. I continued “and she’s in our room now. Here.”
“Ok, well we’ll close down the incident then.”
“Don’t do that. She’s in my room” I protested.
The guards looked at me with quizzed expressions. Unsure of what I was getting at.
I finished my thought. “I don’t want her in here.”
Still they stared. Clearly not understanding what the problem was.
“I don’t know her.”
Suddenly the penny dropped and they got what I was trying to explain.
Clearly, they thought she was my naked blonde 5’6” woman.
“Oh mate! I’m sorry. We didn’t realise. Here, let’s take her away for you.”
I ushered the girl out of my room towards the guards. They wrapped a blanket around her, as she stood there in my Fatface T-shirt and black boxers.
“Hold on…” one of them paused. Benoit Blanc he was not. “How’d she get in?”
I explained that she’d walked in. Even though I thought the door was locked. She was basically able to unlock the door from the outside.
After the second time she got in, I tried locking the door from the inside and found I could open it simply by pulling the handle down.
For some reason, the locking latch didn’t prevent the handle from being pulled. And the usual swipe/tap security card didn’t need to be used either.
In essence. The door was broken.
I pulled the door towards me, closing it from the outside. “Woah Woah! Mate don’t do that!” the security guard cried out, worried that I’d now locked myself out. He was quickly interrupted by me opening the door again, with no key, from the outside.
“Huh. It’s not supposed to do that.”
“Yes” I responded “I know that. Do you know how I know that it opens and isn’t supposed to?”
I left a beat.
“Because I’ve just had a naked woman break into my hotel room twice.”
After a bit of back and forth, it was about 5 AM by this point, I told them we wouldn’t switch rooms as there was no point. I’d just stay awake and jam a chair under the handle.
The guards led the young girl away and I went back to bed.
At the time, in 2016, Premier Inn had an advert running with a particular spokesperson.
Olivia turned to me and said “at least it wasn’t Lenny Henry.”
That morning, after getting dressed and checking with Olivia that what had just happened, really DID happen, I went down to reception.
I was planning on getting a full refund for our stay.
I drummed my fingers on the counter. “Good morning!” I said cheerily. “I’d like to request a refund for our stay please. Room 204.”
“Ah yes, Mr. Killen is it?”
At that point, a police officer walked out from the reception office and asked me to take a seat.
“We’d like you to come with us please, sir. We have some questions about what happened last night.”
I protested immediately and told them that I was happy to answer questions, but I’d need to tell Oliva that I might be a while.
My request was denied and I was led out to a police car, driven to a local police station, and sat down in a room with a chair and table.
To cut a long story short, the girl wanted to press charges against me for rape. Date rape specifically.
Her story was that she was out in a club, and the next thing she remembers is leaving my room.
Wearing my clothes.
And my underwear.
With NO witnesses of Olivia or any security footage of Olivia.
Just me, leading her out of my room, by myself.
It didn’t look good.
Apparently, she was taken to hospital and needed fluids, her stomach pumped and her parents came to collect her.
After being questioned by her parents, she had told them that she clearly was date raped or at least drugged, and she happened to be wearing some guys clothes.
Police made the links and before long, I was sat answering questions about my involvement.
I was told I could leave, but they’d need my whereabouts over the next 48 hours PLUS where I worked and lived.
In all honesty, I remember being extremely angry.
Not at being accused. But because if even half of her story was true, then the REAL culprits were still in the hotel.
They were questioning me, when they should be raiding each room, looking for her actual clothes and seeing who checked into that room.
I kind of felt I was doing their job for them.
And in that moment I realised, my whole life was about to be taken away because of some weird series of coincidences.
I explained the door and how she got my clothes. I tried explaining my entire story and set of events. But I was still a suspect.
I was allowed to leave, but the reunion wasn’t much fun.
And then at my office, for weeks, I imagined being arrested in front of my colleagues and friends over rape charges that were nothing to do with me.
Eventually, I DID hear back from the police.
It turns out that the young woman went out with a girlfriend and met up with a couple of guys. They decided to go back to a hotel for some “group-project work” after drinking a LOT and taking a few pills.
We’ve all been there.
But – when she woke up in a drunken stupor, she didn’t recognise her surroundings. She attempted to either go to the loo or find her way out when…she opened the hotel front door and locked herself out.
Because most of the time, hotel doors close behind you and lock.
However, she couldn’t get out of the hotel hallway, because those were also locked without a key.
Except for one naughty little hotel room door that didn’t want to follow the rules.
Mr. Killen’s door on room 204.
Naughty naughty little hotel door.
Room 204 decided to let ANYONE in that night.
“The more the merrier” it thought.
So when our naked blonde 5’6” party animal tried the handle to room 204, she could get in.
And that’s how she ended up in my clothes.
And because she couldn’t face telling her parents the truth when they picked her up. She told a little white lie.
Personally, I have absolutely no ill will towards the woman. She was young, she panicked and I reckon her hangover was something shocking.
And we sued the hotel company and won too, so that wasn’t too bad.
Needless to say, of course, we haven’t stayed at a Premier Inn since.
Sorry Lenny.
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Now I could have told you the facts – like movie credits.
Or I could have told you this story.
If you want to write better content, tell better stories.
