Nine men on trial after husband admits drugging and raping wife

Prosecutor Louise Oakley KC told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that the woman’s husband had filmed his abuse and shared images online. From at least 2023, she said, he invited other men to the family home to sexually abuse his wife while she was unconscious.

The husband, who cannot be named in order to protect his wife’s legal anonymity, has pleaded guilty to 62 offences, including rape, administering a substance with intent, assault by penetration and sharing intimate images. He is expected to give evidence at the trial.

Oakley said seven of the men on trial had visited the home, while two others were accused of encouraging the abuse or helping online. All nine deny the charges against them.

The woman told police that, as far as she knew, she and her husband had not had sex for nine years before his arrest and that she had never agreed to anyone else being involved in their sexual activity, the jury heard.

According to the BBC and Sky News, Oakley said police found more than a million photographs and videos documenting abuse on the husband’s phone. She said the material gave officers “almost a script” of his offending and the alleged involvement of the men on trial.

The investigation began after undercover journalists entered a group on the messaging service Telegram in October 2025, the court heard. A user who claimed to be drugging and raping his wife was linked to a phone number registered to the husband, enabling police to obtain a search warrant.

Sky News reported that the defendants did not accept that the woman was unconscious. Oakley told jurors it might be suggested that the images were posed and the woman was pretending to be asleep as part of role-play. The prosecution rejected that suggestion.

Four other men have previously pleaded guilty to offences in the case: Keith Fotheringham, Sean Peers, Graham Brougham and Karl Lindsay. Peers admitted assault by penetration and Brougham admitted rape.

The prosecution opening continued on Tuesday. Oakley alleged that one of the defendants, Robert Stewart, had met the husband in 2015 and given him some of his medication. She said Stewart later visited the home but left when the woman stirred. Stewart denies the charges against him.