A Hackney woman who was drugged and raped has raised more than £22,000 to fund a private prosecution after the CPS dropped her case over a lack of evidence.

Emily Hunt woke up to find herself naked next to a complete stranger in a hotel room in May 2015, with no recollection of how she came to be there.

Her last memory was six hours before, when she was drinking a Cava in a Bethnal Green restaurant with her father. He also had one sip of the drink they believe must have been spiked, and he also has no memory of the evening after that point.

The 38-year-old mother phoned a friend from the hotel bathroom, who called police, and the man was arrested at the hotel. Two days later, she was told by officers she had been raped.

However the Crown Prosecution Service does not believe there is enough evidence to secure a conviction, and has dropped the case. She now needs £100,000 for a private prosecution.

It is estimated fewer than 15pc of UK rapes are reported, and the CPS only gets a conviction for 6 to 7pc of those.

She told the Gazette she plucked up the courage to go public with her Go Fund Me page a fortnight ago, while giving a talk at the Speaker Express speaking club. Someone else had dropped out at the last minute and she had nothing prepared.

She said: “I gave a completely impromptu talk and the response from the room was amazing. There was a room full of 50 strangers in the audience. It felt as though everyone was so supportive and that gave me the strength and the power to do something about it.”

She is now speaking with her MP Meg Hillier about how to campaign to change legislation – which she believes is outdated.

“There was a video in which I’m unconscious and it’s clear I’m not sleeping,” she said. “The man told police he took it to masturbate to later because he likes unconscious women, but it didn’t qualify as porn, and no laws were broken for taking a naked video of me without permission. That’s an outdated law.”

A CPS spokesman said the service was “sympathetic to the complainant” but added: “There was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction in this case. The case was subject to a further review by the head of our rape and sexual offences team, who upheld the original decision.”

See gofundme.com/prosecuterape.