A courageous mother has revealed the terrifying moment her husband of 16 years admitted that he had been drugging her at night before raping her while she slept.
Zoe Watts said her partner, who she met aged 18 and went on to have four children with, used their autistic son's sleep medication to sedate her, before filming his depraved acts.
Her ex-husband is serving 11 years for rape, sexual assault by penetration and drugging — and Zoe, who is from Devon, England, has now disclosed details about her harrowing experience.
Zoe believed she was living an ordinary life until her husband, who was 10 years her senior, delivered shocking revelations that transformed everything one Sunday afternoon.
Recalling the moment he suddenly confessed, she said: "We had a church service and I can remember he put his hand on my leg in the middle of it and it was like a Valentine's Day or something church service."
She added: "He put his hand on my leg and he said 'I need to talk to you tonight' which I thought was a bit strange."
Typically it was Zoe who started conversations, especially regarding either the children or future arrangements. But she dismissed his remark before he confronted her after she had settled the kids to bed that evening.
She recalled to James English on the Anything Goes podcast: "He gave me a cup of tea and sat me down and said, 'Well, you know I wanted to talk to you, well here goes.' And he dropped this big list of confessions — just boom, boom, boom."
Among those bombshell confessions was the revelation that he had an affair with her best friend while she was pregnant.
Recalling her thoughts after he also admitted to drugging and raping her over a period of years, she said: "I can honestly say, and this is how crazy it is, I can honest say, as soon as he said 'I did have an affair', which shot me right back to like eight years before and what I thought when I thought I was going crazy, and then I understood this new reality and I was stuck on that."
Once he said about the affair, anything else was just like white noise. It was hard for me to process, because I was just running every conversation and every intimate exchange that we'd had.
"It was so strange, you would have thought I would have been absolutely f***ing outraged, but my brain, I don't think I knew how to process anything else. I wasn't understanding that I was being raped. I wasn't understanding that I was being drugged."
She went on to describe suffering a complete breakdown, during which her doctor prescribed her medication, and even the most routine daily tasks, such as leaving the house or doing the school run, became utterly unbearable.
Zoe also revealed she only disclosed the affair to her family — keeping his other disturbing admissions hidden. She described being more preoccupied with her children's wellbeing than attempting to come to terms with the ordeal she had endured.
And offering a glimpse into the intricacies of his offence, she said: "I knew that something had happened to me, but I didn't have the necessary memories for the trauma."
"Like if I have a car crash and some idiot hits me at 40 miles an hour, breaks my car and breaks my legs, I'm able to say 'look at that twit over there, look at what he's done'. And everybody can see the outrage and they can see the damage.
"Well, the damage for this type of crime and why it's so dangerous is that I've just had people say, 'Yeah, but you're asleep, so where's the harm?'"
Understandably, the anguish she was experiencing became overwhelming, and she suffered a panic attack at her sister's home one evening, where she revealed everything.
After disclosing that her husband had been spiking her nightly cup of tea with sleeping medication before assaulting her, her sister contacted their mum who subsequently alerted the police before Zoe filed charges.
She was forced to endure a harrowing court case before the predator was ultimately found guilty.
She has since helped launch a survivor-led campaign called #EndWhyCheck which targets legal loopholes Zoe believes allows men to drug, rape and video partners before sharing the content online.
If you or somebody you know has been affected by this story, contact Victim Support for free, confidential advice on 08 08 16 89 111 or visit their website.
