A man drugged, raped and abused his wife for more than 20 years before inviting other men into their home to sexually assault her, a jury at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court was told. The man, aged in his 60s and from Stockport, has admitted 62 offences, including rape, assault by penetration, sexual assault, administering substances and other charges relating to his wife, and is awaiting sentence.
Nine men, including a former paramedic and a Manchester football coach, have gone on trial. They deny various offences they face. The prosecution has categorised them as 'contact offenders', men who allegedly went to the couple's home, and 'non-contact offenders', who were said to have only been online.
Husband's double life revealed
Opening the case, prosecutor Louise Oakley KC said that 'unbeknownst' to the woman her husband had been 'abusing her sexually in a variety of different ways while she was asleep or unconscious'. He was said to have initially taken advantage of occasions when she was drunk, but also 'deliberately used a cocktail of stupefying drugs which he administered to her without her knowledge, with or without alcohol'.
The men, said the prosecutor, 'enjoyed the fact' that she was asleep or unconscious. She was said to be 'entirely unaware of what was being done to her'. Ms Oakley said men 'actively encouraged' the husband to commit further offences, 'advised him what to administer' and 'how to do it'. The husband 'filmed and photographed' what went on and shared it online with 'other like-minded men'.
Men 'led double lives'
Ms Oakley told the jury that some of the nine 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. She said they allegedly conspired to administer substances to her 'so that her body could be used and abused'. "They derived sexual gratification and enjoyment from knowing that she was 'unaware and 'out of it'," added the prosecutor.
The prosecutor said the husband and the nine defendants 'led double lives' and had hidden their depravity, which she said 'knew no bounds'. Ms Oakley said it was 'difficult to conceive how such offending could get worse', but from 2023 the husband began 'actually inviting other men round to their home'. He was said to have filmed himself and others raping and sexually abusing her.
Police discovery and charges
Police discovered what had been happening when undercover journalists infiltrated a chat group on messaging app Telegram, the court was told. The husband was identified as one of the group's users who shared imagery of his wife. Detectives seized a Samsung mobile telephone from his address which was "like a confession booth", said the prosecutor. Ms Oakley said: "It contained the husband's darkest secrets and his barbaric sexual fantasies that he had sought to fulfil going back to 2004."
Also discovered were thousands of emails, messages and online chats, and "over a million photographs and videos cataloguing not only his abuse of his wife but abuse on her committed by others". Ms Oakley added: "There is no doubt he lived a double life masked in respectability. Outwardly, he maintained a clean and admired image. He hid his dark and depraved secrets."
The nine defendants are David Graves, 59, of Milton Avenue, Derbyshire; Robert Stewart, 70, of Sandpiper Drive, Stockport; former taxi driver Philip Wild, 58, of St Davids Road, Cheadle; Daniel Rayner, 42, of Sherwood Drive, Whitstable; Mohammed Sabir, 28, of no fixed address; Jordan Wallace, 31, of Hindsford Close, Wythenshawe; Alan Keelan, 42, of Foscarn Drive, Wythenshawe; Richard Townsend, 37, of Woodland Street, Heywood; and Jonathan Kirk, 43, of Telford Close, Macclesfield. The offences are said to have taken place between 2015 and 2025.
Four other men have pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to various offences linked to the case: Keith Fotheringham, 59, of Dundee; Karl Lindsay, 56, of Taunton; Sean Peers, 38, of Stockport, and Graham Brougham, 74, of Northwich, Cheshire. The trial continues.
