Ciara Charteris: I was raped by my best friend

Ciara Charteris has claimed she was raped by her "best friend" five years ago.

The 25-year-old actress has opened up on her terrifying ordeal in an open letter on the blog \'I Am Arla\' - a support network for survivors of rape - after her abuser found their way into her professional and social circles.

She wrote: "Despite saying no numerous times, begging him to get off me, trying to physically pull him off, my flight mode was not attuned to protect me from a rapist that had the face of my best friend. So I just shut my eyes and passed out in terrified defeat. Only waking later to clean myself up and try and find my bottoms."

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The incident allegedly took place at a friend\'s birthday party in 2015 with an older male friend from her youth theatre group.

Ciara decided not to speak out, but confided in a friend who gave her "unwavering support" and both decided to cut the abuser out of their lives.

However, the \'Poldark\' star was shocked to see her friend had become close with the guy three years later after seeing posts of them spending time together on social media.

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Explaining how it affected her, Ciara said: "It was one thing to deal with the post-traumatic stress of being physically violated by someone I trusted, but quite another when the person who had stood by me through it all, whom I trusted the most, suddenly decided to turn a blind eye to it. This broke me."

But it gave Ciara the strength to speak out and she reported the rape to the police in December 2019.

However, in March, she was told he would not face any charges and her friend she confided in at the time refused to give a statement.