Credit, Nick Lewis/BBC
Important: This report contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.
A woman who believed she had not had sex for nine years was in fact regularly drugged and raped by her own husband and a group of strangers "whose depravity knew no bounds", according to revelations that came to light at a trial in England.
Her husband led a "double life," according to prosecutors. He regularly offered his wife a "numbing cocktail" of drugs so that she would be "completely unaware" of the abuse.
He and four men have already pleaded guilty to a series of crimes, but the trial of nine other defendants, who deny all charges, has begun in a court in Manchester, England.
At the opening of the case, the prosecution's representative, Louise Oakley, declared that the wife was "happy", but that "the life she knew ended when the police knocked on the door of her home".
Before the proceedings opened, the judge, Maurice Greene, warned jurors to be prepared to confront evidence that could provoke feelings of "disturbance and anger."
Right at the opening of the case, videos were shown of the woman, in her 60s, being raped and sexually assaulted while unconscious, according to the prosecutor's office.
Oakley told the jury that the husband and victim had the appearance of a couple eagerly awaiting retirement, who "led busy lives, enjoyed their home and garden, socialized with family and friends and vacationed abroad — everything, always together."
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But the prosecutor said the husband, also in his 60s (his name cannot be released to protect his wife's right to anonymity), had been sharing videos and images online since 2004 showing himself raping and abusing his unconscious wife at the family home in the Stockport area.
"You may find it difficult to imagine how these abuses could escalate further, but they did," she told the court.
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The prosecutor stated that the husband had been planning for years to invite men to his house to rape his wife, but that he only put the idea into practice in 2023.
The men, according to the prosecution, "knew very well that she was not conscious and that is why they were there, to use her body while she was unconscious."
According to Oakley, police confiscated her husband's cell phone, which contained his "darkest secrets" and his "brutal sexual fantasies."
Investigators found there more than a million photographs and videos "cataloging" her husband's abuse. Oakley claims the files provided police with "almost a road map" of her husband's abuse and the nine men on trial.
“His depravity seems to have had no boundaries,” according to her.
"They also lived double lives. Whether entering and leaving [the couple's residence] at night, silently and carefully so that they would not be seen or heard, or hiding behind their computer screens or cell phones, believing, without a doubt, that they were safe."
The jury heard from defendants, including "perpetrators who had physical contact with the victim," such as 43-year-old paramedic Jonathan Kirk; taxi driver Philip Wild, 59; amateur football coach Alan Keelan, 42; human resources agency employee Mohammed Sabir, 28; Jordan Wallace, 31, who worked for a building materials company; sheet metal assembler Richard Townsend, 37; and retired Robert Stewart, 70 years old.
Two other defendants, Daniel Rayner and David Graves, were described as "non-contact" attackers. They did not visit the victim's home, but are accused of having encouraged the abuse or helped in other ways.
Oakley warned the jury that the defense could make references to unconventional sexual practices such as "swapping" and "sleep fetishes," or that the images would be "posed and that [the victim] is in fact simply pretending to be asleep or unconscious as part of a fantasy with her husband."
"What these men did was not participation in unconventional sexual practices, but consensual ones. It was rape and sexual abuse, pure and simple," said the prosecutor.
Credit, Reuters
Oakley mentioned as an example a message from one of the defendants, retired Robert Stewart, to her husband, sent hours after he allegedly raped the victim, in September 2025.
"Man, I had a bad feeling about that all day," the prosecutor read. "Delete all images from your phone etc. as it's too dangerous. Remember what happened to the guy in France."
"Delete me from your phone and your life. If she finds out, it will be a big problem and the end of your marriage, it will ruin your life."
"As you will certainly remember, 'the guy in France' raped his wife, a lady called Gisèle Pelicot," Oakley told the jury, referencing the famous case of the woman who was systematically raped by dozens of men after being drugged by her husband.
'Sick and perverted'
The prosecution informed the jury that, after pleading guilty, the husband had provided an account of his actions and would appear as a witness.
He told prosecutors that he began abusing his wife in the early 2000s.
Initially, he recalled abusing her when his wife was unconscious and keeping the images "to himself." But he soon began sharing the images in internet chat rooms with other "like-minded" men.
Oakley stated that, "in a sick and perverted move", he sometimes pretended to be his wife in online conversations, but said he abandoned this practice "early on".
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The jury was told that investigations into the abuse began after a team of undercover investigative journalists infiltrated a channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram in October 2025.
Apparently, the channel's participants were men who shared images of apparently unconscious women being raped and sexually assaulted.
One specific user, according to Oakley, claimed to have drugged and raped his wife, inviting other men to participate. He also shared images of the woman.
The user was linked to a mobile phone number registered to her husband, which allowed Greater Manchester Police to obtain a search warrant for her address.
Oakley stated that when the contents of the cell phone were downloaded, material was found in a secure folder titled "visits." It also contained messaging applications used to contact other defendants.
The prosecutor stated that the jury would only see a selection of the files, but that the police had analyzed each one.
The husband pleaded guilty to 62 offenses, including rape, intentionally administering a substance, sharing intimate images and penetrative abuse.
Keith Fotheringham, aged 59, from Dundee, Scotland; Sean Peers, 38, from Stockport; Graham Brougham, 74, of Northwich, England; and Karl Lindsay, 55, from Taunton, also in England, pleaded guilty to several crimes.
The trial is still ongoing.
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