A young journalist was subjected to a horrific gang rape ordeal after asking a group of men for directions, a court heard last week.

The woman boarded the wrong bus home following a night out in October 2007 and ended up in Clapton where a group of men at a bus stop promised to help find her a taxi after she asked them for help.

But instead they led her to a squalid flat, stripped her naked and raped her – in an attack which the victim said had “devastated” her life.

The woman tried to escape the flat from a bathroom window after her ordeal but it was locked and she was forced to stay in there overnight.

She escaped the following morning and managed to get to Kings Cross where she reported the incident to police – but could not find the location of the flat afterwards and most of those responsible have never been traced.

But in 2011 Somalian immigrant Emad Mohamed, 23, was linked to the attack and was last week jailed for two years.

The Old Bailey heard how he had laid on top of her and carried out a sexual assault after she was raped by another man in the group.

The victim, who is still undergoing counselling more than five years on, said in a statement: “Sometimes I feel like my whole personality has changed from a confident and outgoing young woman to a paranoid and reclusive person.”

Judge Anthony Morris said: “At the time she was a happy outgoing woman but after the rape she found it difficult to cope.

“She had to resign from the newspaper and was out of work for several months. She finds leaving the house very traumatic and difficult to deal with.”

Mohamed, of Canterbury Road, Beckton, admitted one charge of sexual assault.