At first glance, the video that Juliana Terlizzi uncovered on her laptop five years ago could be mistaken for footage of a tender moment between a loving couple.
Filmed by her then-boyfriend Hubert Greliak, he’s smiling into the camera while behind him Juliana is snuggled under her duvet in bed, apparently fast asleep.
It takes just seconds, however, to realise that this video is the very opposite of a touching record of a caring relationship.
For Juliana was not asleep, but drugged. The video shows her boyfriend sexually assaulting her, having rendered her unconscious.
‘My heart lurched. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and the state I was in,’ Juliana says now as she recalls the devastating moment she discovered that the man who claimed to love her was capable of such a monstrous betrayal.
‘I couldn’t believe what was happening to me and that I’d had no knowledge about it at all.’
Worse was to come. Months later, by which point Juliana, now 38, had reported Greliak to the police, she discovered further footage on her own computer – missed by detectives – in which he actively boasted of raping her.
She has no idea how many times he may have drugged and assaulted her while they were living together from December 2019 to March 2020, as she has no memory of the events, only his claims in the video.
Juliana Terlizzi found a video showing her then-boyfriend sexually assaulting her, having rendered her unconscious
Yet despite these admissions, it still took a painful two years to bring her tormentor to justice. In that time Greliak was released on bail and began trying to meet other women on dating sites.
‘For many months I was too scared to leave my flat,’ Juliana says. ‘This man had shown he was a danger to women – and yet for two years after I reported him, he was walking the streets. He even had a profile on Tinder.’
Finally, in 2022, Greliak was found guilty of rape and assault by penetration at Isleworth Crown Court in London and jailed for 13-and-a-half years. It was a prolonged quest for justice that at times left Juliana in fear for her life.
Courageously, however, she allowed her story to be captured by documentary cameras, resulting in an unflinching record not only of the abuse she suffered, but of the challenges faced by victims in a system which makes it extremely hard to prosecute allegations of sexual abuse within an ongoing relationship.
‘From early on I knew I wanted to waive my anonymity, because the shame shouldn’t lie on me,’ Juliana says now of her decision to go public with her story.
As she speaks, you cannot help but recall the similar words of Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose husband was found guilty last year of drugging and raping her, and who made a powerful call for ‘shame to swap sides’ from victim to rapist.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ continues Juliana. ‘If you don’t speak out, you don’t heal. I felt very strongly that I was not going to be ashamed of what happened to me but that I needed to use it to help other victims.’
After Juliana reported Hubert Greliak to the police, she discovered further footage on her computer – missed by detectives – in which he actively boasted of raping her
Her courage is commendable, particularly as the impact of Greliak’s abuse remains profound. Juliana suffers from agoraphobia, has been diagnosed with PTSD, and has had to work hard to rebuild a life in which she was thriving before, in September 2018, she met Greliak in a London nightclub.
By then the trained pastry chef had been in the capital for a year, having moved here from her native Brazil to set up a food travel company with a friend.
‘I loved my life,’ she recalls. ‘I felt like I was on the top of the world. And then I met this horrible person who derailed it all.’
The son of Polish parents who raised him in London, Greliak approached Juliana on a night out, lavishing her with compliments and telling her he would memorise her number when she left as he had no battery on his phone.
Two hours later, when Juliana arrived back at her home in west London, he had already texted saying he wanted to meet – the first of what would be a huge number of flattering messages. Within one week, he had texted her to say he felt he was ‘falling in love with her a little bit’.
‘He gave me so much attention, and I wasn’t used to that,’ she recalls. ‘So I thought I should maybe give him a shot, even though I wasn’t particularly attracted to him, because he seemed so interested in getting to know me.’
As a talented pianist, his musical prowess was another draw for a woman who had been raised in a musical family and played the guitar and piano herself.
Greliak told her he worked at the Royal Albert Hall, which Juliana took to mean as a musician, although in fact she later discovered he was an usher.
Intimate scenes of Juliana with Greliak, boasting of attacking her while unconscious, as shown in The Secret Footage documentary
Juliana has no idea how many times Greliak may have drugged and assaulted her while they were living together
Early on, Juliana had concerns about Greliak’s behaviour: chaotic and disorganised, he would frequently call in the small hours saying he had lost his travelcard or run out of money, and beg for her help.
‘My friends were telling me that they couldn’t see me with this guy – I felt that myself, too. But looking back I now see that his hook into me was telling me I was the only person who could help him change and become the person he wanted to be. I believed I was the only one who could help him.’
She pauses. ‘I certainly didn’t see him as dangerous. But, looking back, he was dangerous from the start. He isolated me from my friends and my work.’
As the months went on, Greliak also persuaded her to allow him to video them having sex, reassuring her that by using her own laptop there was never any danger that it could be seen by anyone else.
‘It wasn’t the sort of thing I would usually do, but he could be very persuasive,’ she says. ‘He would tell me that, as it was my own laptop, I had complete control.’
Then, around a year into their time together, Juliana discovered text messages from another girl on Greliak’s phone after becoming suspicious about him leaving the room to take calls.
After contacting the woman, she was horrified to discover that she was his ‘girlfriend’. ‘I spent Christmas Day and his birthday with him – and all this time he had another partner,’ she says.
Devastated by his callousness, Juliana told Greliak she did not want to see him again, only for him to bombard her with messages.
Then, several months later, in December 2019, he arrived on her doorstep saying he was homeless and begging for her help. Despite her misgivings, the naturally empathetic Juliana felt she could not turn him away, and agreed to let him stay on a temporary basis – albeit only as a friend.
Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose husband was found guilty last year of drugging and raping her, and who made a powerful call for ‘shame to swap sides’ from victim to rapist
‘He said he just needed to save enough money to rent a room. Looking back, I am shocked by how much he manipulated me,’ she says. Then, on March 1, 2020, Juliana got a message out of the blue from the payment portal PayPal asking if she wanted to review her recent transactions.
‘I don’t know why I checked, but when I did I saw £300 had been transferred to Greliak’s account without my knowledge.’ Juliana confronted him straight away.
‘I was trying to help him – he was living off me, not paying a penny, and yet he was still going behind my back. It made me realise he wasn’t going to change. I couldn’t justify having this person around any longer. So I kicked him out.’
The following day, Greliak texted her saying he was going to send her dad a video for his 80th birthday. Immediately, Juliana knew it was a threat.
‘I knew he meant a sexual video, which meant he must have taken some from my computer, so I immediately went to my laptop to see what was there.’ She pauses. ‘And that’s when I found it.’
There, among the multiple files, was a lengthy film which shows an unconscious Juliana being assaulted by Greliak.
Chillingly, he can be heard referring to the fact she is so oblivious to anything around her that he could ‘rob her or rape her’ and she wouldn’t know.
‘I was sickened, but at the same time I knew instantly that this was my way of getting away from him for good,’ she says.
‘I called his bluff and lied to him, telling him I had already told my parents everything that had happened between us, and that he couldn’t do anything to hurt me. And then I went to Acton police station to report him.’
Bravely, she then assisted in his arrest, inviting him to ‘talk’ at her flat where plain-clothed detectives were waiting to take him in.
Greliak was initially remanded in custody – a situation Juliana assumed would continue until the trial, given the severity of the charges and the video evidence. It was only six weeks later that she discovered he had been released on bail, despite a judge hearing she feared for her life if he was at large.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she says. ‘I wrote to the judge, the CPS and the police to express my outrage. My attacker was back on the streets and was free to potentially attack another woman.’
Utterly traumatised, Juliana did not leave her flat for months. ‘I was living in a tiny studio apartment with my dog, but I didn’t feel safe enough to go out,’ she says. ‘The system that’s supposed to protect me failed.’ She points out police told her to ‘block’ anyone related to Greliak for her own safety.
‘The arrogance of a man who could record his crime and admit it on camera meant I knew there must be others. But the police didn’t seem interested,’ she says.
As Greliak’s initial trial approached in March 2021 – a year after Juliana first visited the police – worse was to come. While preparing her victim impact statement, she decided to review the videos on her computer again.
‘That’s when I realised there was another video,’ she says. ‘The police had had access to everything, but completely missed it.’
This footage was, arguably, even more devastating. Yet again, it shows a heavily drugged Juliana in bed as Greliak talks to the camera. ‘I was f****** with you when you were unconscious,’ he boasts into the lens.
In other words, an admission of rape. ‘It’s worse than heartbreak,’ Juliana says. ‘I can’t even describe the feeling of realising someone you thought loved you could do this. I felt grief really, because it was proof the person I loved was never real.’
Juliana faced a further setback after taking this footage to police. With the CPS unable to add the allegation of rape to Greliak’s charge sheet at such short notice, the trial was pushed back another year.
It took two years to bring Greliak to justice. In that time, he was released on bail and began trying to meet other women on dating sites
‘I was basically in survival mode,’ she says. She also had to make the heartbreaking decision to tell her parents the unvarnished truth about what was happening. Until this point, they knew only that their daughter was involved in legal proceedings.
‘I had wanted to shelter them. I didn’t want them to feel the pain I knew telling them the truth was going to cause,’ she says.
‘But they were trying to convince me to drop the case and go back to Brazil. That’s when I had to explain it wasn’t just about me any more. I didn’t want this to happen to anyone else, and it was my job to hold him accountable.’
That sensation only deepened when Juliana discovered Greliak was using the dating app Tinder as he was awaiting trial. ‘He was doing so in plain sight,’ she says.
Finally, in March 2022, the case came to trial, with Juliana enduring several hours on the witness stand, interrogated about her most intimate sexual experiences. ‘You like sex, don’t you?’ the defence barrister asked her at one point.
‘I already knew I would be put on the spot, so I was prepared for it,’ Juliana says now of her ordeal. ‘Because it always falls on the victim. At the same time I knew all I had to do was speak the truth.’
And that was indeed all that was needed: the jury ultimately found Greliak guilty, and he was jailed for 13-and-a-half years by a judge who told him he was a danger to the public.
It was a bittersweet occasion. ‘It’s shocking to me that the moment that he was found guilty was when a judge acknowledged that he was a danger to everyone,’ Juliana says. ‘They had this video from the start, yet they needed a jury to tell the world he was dangerous.’
Three years on, she has taken huge comfort from campaigning to help victims of sexual abuse. ‘It’s so important for them to know they have a voice and they should use it,’ she says.
She also hopes to find love again one day. ‘For a long time I felt I wasn’t capable of trusting again, but over time that has changed,’ she says. ‘I will never fully get over what happened, but I now feel I have got my life back.’
- My Boyfriend, My Rapist: The Secret Footage airs at 10pm tonight. Watch or stream on 5
