A British model who was kidnapped and held for ransom in Italy said justice had been “served” on Monday after her kidnapper was sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison.

Chloe Ayling thanked those who “believed in me from the beginning” in a nude Instagram post hours after Lukasz Herba was convicted of kidnapping charges by an Italian court.

“Shame on all of the ignorant people who doubted what had happened to me and think they know more than the Italian authorities,” Ayling wrote.

Herba, 30, was accused of drugged and kidnapped Ayling when she showed up at a Milan address for a modeling job. He held her for six days at a Piedmont farmhouse before she was released at the British consulate in Milan, according to prosecutors.

Herba testified that Ayling agreed to stage the kidnapping to further her career and that he invented a group used for deep web auctions of women. Herba said he made up the Black Death group, which he claimed was behind the kidnapping and deep-web auctions of women, and a series of Romanian co-conspirators.

Adrian Sington, Ayling’s agent, told Sky News that his client was “over the moon by the verdict.”

“Her career has been hugely affected by this, we've turned down paid modelling deals since her kidnap and she feels she can no longer work in the industry as she has lost all trust in that world,” he said.