A malnourished woman with learning disabilities was allegedly raped repeatedly and imprisoned for almost a decade in a specially adapted house in Northern Ireland, the High Court in Belfast has heard.
Another woman assessed as suffering chronic post-traumatic stress disorder said she endured 20 years of abuse by the 57-year-old accused. Prosecutors claimed one victim, a married woman missing since 2004, weighed just six stone after being kept locked in a sparse, unlit bedroom with no interior door handle.
Video footage of sex acts involving both women, their alleged captor, his wife, and other unidentified men has been seized. The accused faces charges including rape, false imprisonment, sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder, trafficking for sexual exploitation, voyeurism, and aiding and abetting rape.
The alleged offences, committed between 2004 and January this year, are all denied. The accused told police both women fully consented. His barrister disputed any portrayal of his client as 'a monster' overseeing a 'house of horrors,' describing him instead as an 'infirm' man bed-ridden for months.
However, after the judge challenged the lack of medical evidence to support those claims, the defence agreed to adjourn the bail application. The accused will remain in custody until his case returns to court.
