Nine men are standing trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, each denying sexual offences, after a husband admitted drugging and raping his wife for more than 20 years. The husband, a man in his 60s from Stockport, has pleaded guilty to 62 charges, including rape, assault by penetration, administering a substance with intent, sexual assault, attempted rape, and sharing intimate photographs or film.
The Manchester Evening News and other media organisations are not naming the man to protect his victim's anonymity. Prosecution counsel Louise Oakley KC spent four days opening the case for the Crown in the first week of the trial, with jurors hearing from police officers on the fifth day.
Allegations of a 'barbaric fantasy'
Opening the case on Monday, November 2, Ms Oakley told the jury the alleged victim lived with her husband in Stockport, and that 'the life she knew ended' when police knocked at their door in October last year. The prosecutor said that for over 20 years, the husband had been 'abusing her sexually in a variety of different ways whilst she was asleep or was unconscious', initially taking advantage of occasions when she was drunk.
He also 'deliberately used a cocktail of stupefying drugs which he administered to her without her knowledge, with or without alcohol'. The jury was told the husband 'filmed and photographed what went on' and shared it online with 'other like-minded men'. Ms Oakley said the men 'enjoyed the fact' that she was asleep or unconscious, and that the woman was 'entirely unaware of what was being done to her'.
She told the jury that some of these defendants were 'amongst those men'. "Individuals who hide behind a screen, but who conspired at various time over the years up to [his] arrest, to rape and sexually assault [her]," she said. The prosecutor said discussions took place across various online platforms, using accounts and handles that disguised their real identities.
Contact and non-contact offenders
Ms Oakley said the nine defendants fall within 'two categories' - 'contact offenders' who went to the house and 'non-contact offenders' with only an online presence. The contact offenders are said to have attended the husband's home and sexually abused the wife, while the non-contact offenders are said to have 'encouraged' the husband to commit further offences.
The defendants are Alan Keelan, 42, of Wythenshawe; Philip Wild, 58, of Cheadle; Jordan Wallace, 31, of Wythenshawe; Mohammed Sabir, 28, of no fixed address; Jonathan Kirk, 43, of Macclesfield; Richard Townsend, 37, of Heywood; Robert Stewart, 70, of Stockport; David Graves, 59, of Derbyshire; and Daniel Rayner, 42, of Whitstable.
The court heard that from 2023, the husband began 'actually inviting other men round to their home', filming himself and others raping and sexually abusing her. Ms Oakley said it was the prosecution's case that all the men charged knew the man's wife was not a willing participant and was not consenting. "She could not – she had absolutely no idea it was going on," she said.
Evidence of drugs and abuse
The jury heard that a black Samsung Galaxy S25 mobile found at the husband's home was 'like a confession booth', containing over a million photographs and videos cataloguing abuse dating back to 2004. A secure folder called 'visits' was found, and police recovered several pipettes from a bedside table, one containing a white powder residue found to be Zolpidem, a prescription sedative.
Toxicological analysis on strands of the woman's hair found the presence of drugs including morphine, ketamine, mirtazapine, noscapine, sertraline, diazepam, Citalopram, cocaine, and Zolpidem, none of which had been prescribed to her. Ms Oakley said Zolpidem was found to be 'by far the greatest concentration and over the longest period'.
Ms Oakley told the jury that the husband has 'now admitted his responsibility' and is now 'a witness' in the trial. She said four other men - Keith Fotheringham, Karl Lindsay, Sean Peers and Graham Brougham - have pleaded guilty to a variety of offences committed with the woman's husband. The trial was adjourned until 10.30am on Monday, November 6.
