A husband advertised his wife on the internet to fulfil his "fantasy" of watching as she was abused by four men after he had drugged, "shackled and blindfolded" her, a court has heard. Philip Young has pleaded guilty to multiple charges of abuse against his former spouse, Joanne Young, who has waived her right to anonymity.
Four men Young is alleged to have recruited to abuse his wife at their home in Swindon, Wiltshire, have gone on trial at Winchester Crown Court. Sarah Jones KC, prosecuting, told the court on Tuesday (October 27) that Mrs Young had been unaware of the attacks against her with only a "nightmare" sense of another person being present by her bed.
Prosecution Details
Ms Jones added Mrs Young, 49, said she was "emphatically monogamous" with "vanilla" sexual tastes. She would also wake up to find herself blindfolded and with handcuffs on with no idea that she had been abused, the court heard.
The court was told that Mrs Young said: "Always monogamous... physically and emotionally... the traditional sense of marriage... It was us two kind of till the end."
Ms Jones said Mrs Young first recalled an incident when she had fallen asleep after having a night out. The prosecutor said: "She recalled she ‘had the blindfold on and the restraints, kind of all the wrist things on." And we’d been having sex and I felt someone else’s hand on my wrist and it wasn’t his (Phil’s) hand because he was, he was still almost at the end of the bed on me kind of, and the, the hand was over there, so it was not the same person’."
The Abuse Scheme
Ms Jones added: "It turned out of course that she had stumbled upon the edges of a far greater issue in her relationship. That Phil’s behaviour had not been limited to inviting a single man in simply for the purposes of watching the two of them having sex."
"What she had considered to be already a gross invasion, a betrayal of her trust was far, far more invasive and shocking."
The prosecutor said Mrs Young recalled a point earlier in her marriage, telling jurors in her words: "I just remember how scared I was. It was not a normal, er, it was a really terrified, scared of something and I don’t know what. So, that’s the only thing I can say when you ask, you know, if (there was) something else."
Ms Jones told the court: "It turned out what she had thought was a literal night terror was not a baseless fear or some kind of nightmare. Somehow, Mrs Young, without being able to recall what was being done to her body without any consultation, had a sense that pressure was being placed upon her to agree to others being involved in her and her husband’s intimate life."
"The very idea terrified her. The reality would turn out to be even worse. Young had advertised her on Craigslist, Grindr and swinging websites. He sought strangers to come and sleep with his wife, any age, any race – but as close to Swindon as possible so that when the circumstances were right they could be seized upon immediately."
Evidence and Defendants
She told the court Mr Young presented it as a "kink" for both of them, but there was no information from Mrs Young herself to support this and the photos her husband posted of her to advertise his offer showed her inanimate and tied to the bed blindfolded.
Ms Jones said: "The nightcap they shared, it appeared would be used to plunge her into a state where anything could be done to her by whoever answered and she would be unaware or unable to remember."
The prosecutor told jurors the police became aware of Young when they were notified he had uploaded extreme images to a Kik messaging app. When he allowed officers to examine his phone in July 2023, they realised this was the "tip of an iceberg" and found he had been sharing intimate images of his wife.
Ms Jones said video evidence showed Mrs Young was "shackled and blindfolded" and being subjected to sexual activity by men "plucked from the internet" while her husband stood watching, allegedly "relishing their degradation of her".
Jurors heard that in 2015, police intercepted a packet containing a sedative drug which had been emailed to Young from India but he denied any knowledge of it. But the prosecution said analysis of Mrs Young’s hair showed she had been exposed to the sedative drug and another medication between spring 2023 and summer 2024.
The four defendants who have been charged jointly with Young, who has admitted his role in the offences, are: Norman Macksoni, 48, of Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, who has denied one count of rape; Richard Wilkins, 62, of Toothill, Swindon, Wiltshire, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and one of assault by penetration.
Connor Sanderson-Doyle, 32, of Swindon, has denied sexual assault by penetration and sexual touching and Mohammed Hassan, 38, of Swindon, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual touching.
Young, 50, a former Tory councillor, has pleaded guilty to 56 charges and a sixth defendant, Dean Hamilton, 47, of Street, Somerset, has admitted one charge of assault by penetration, two of sexual assault and one of rape.
They will be sentenced at the conclusion of the trial, which continues.
