A nurse who was drugged and raped by a Metropolitan police officer during a Tinder date in Antigua today broke her silence and said she is “serving a life sentence in recovery”.

American Kaitlin Hurley, 26, went on a date with Pc Lee Martin-Cramp in 2015 when she was doing missionary work on the Caribbean island but warned him she did not want to have sex.

However, the police officer, who has since been dismissed by the force, slipped a drug into her wine and attacked her as she lay barely conscious on her bed.

Last week Martin-Cramp was jailed for 15 years by an Antiguan court.

In 2017 it seemed he would avoid a trial after a British court refused to send him to the grim conditions of Antigua’s prisons over human rights fears.

However, Martin-Cramp became the first Briton to be extradited to the island last year once a deal was struck to hold him in an air-conditioned cell on a former naval base.

Ms Hurley, who waived her right to anonymity to speak about the case, said she was left feeling “numb” and “empty” following the attack in May 2015, and said she wrote numerous suicide letters on her phone and cried herself to sleep for a year.

The devout Christian told CNN: “When this happened, I felt as though God betrayed me ... I still do not understand why [God] allowed this trauma to happen to me. And my heart breaks as I continually wonder why bad things happen to good people.”

She added: “I’m serving a life sentence in recovery, nothing can make me the person I once was.”

Martin-Cramp, who worked in the wanted offenders unit in Wimbledon, sent Ms Hurley pictures of himself in police uniform in messages they exchanged before the date.

After meeting, they shared wine at a dockside boat party before returning to Ms Hurley’s home, where Martin-Cramp, 26, slipped a drug into her drink. Ms Hurley said she stopped drinking due to the odd taste, but then quickly began to feel “dizzy” and blacked out. She could only remember screaming for Martin-Cramp to stop.

She woke up naked and confused in bed with him in the morning with bite marks and bruises on her body, and Martin-Cramp later admitted by text that they had sex. Ms Hurley reported the police officer, who cut off all contact, for rape but was initially told that the case would go nowhere.

However, she and her family continued to pressure authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to fight for justice. She said she hoped that by speaking out, other victims would be inspired to come forward.