Man who drugged and raped wife found many men ‘whose fantasy is an unconscious woman’, court told

Nine men stand trial in Manchester accused of participating in abuse at couple’s home in Stockport, or encouraging it online

The Stockport man who drugged, raped and sexually assaulted his wife personally found a large number of the “many, many men whose fantasy is an unconscious and unresponsive woman”, a court has heard.

Nine men are on trial at Manchester Minshull Street crown court, accused of either participating in the abuse, which took place at the couple’s home, or encouraging it online.

The husband, who is in his 60s, has pleaded guilty to multiple offences against his wife, committed over a period of more than 20 years. He cannot be named in order to protect the anonymity of his victim.

On the second day of the prosecution case, Louise Oakley KC told the jury the husband had met the first defendant, Robert Stewart, 70, who also lived in Stockport, Greater Manchester, on Craigslist in 2015.

His interaction with Stewart, the jury was told, was “to be his blueprint for future offending”. Stewart had asked if the victim would ever participate in a “threesome”, but the husband “made it clear that there was absolutely no chance of that”, the court heard.

The two men then discussed the use of date rape drugs and opportunities to spike her drink to try to render the woman unconscious. Stewart provided the husband with antidepressants and Tramadol, a strong painkiller, on agreement the husband would invite Stewart to go to their home if she was unconscious, the jury was told.

The contact between the two men was, Oakley said, “no doubt the first big step [the husband] took in realising his own fantasy of having another man come to him and ‘fuck’ his unaware wife.”

The court heard the husband had visited news websites and online forums, where he searched for information on date rape drugs, GHB and sleeping tablets. “[The husband’s] perversity did not wane,” Oakley told the court. “He wanted to share her but recognised that alcohol alone was not going to be enough.

“So desperate, you may think, was he, he would share imagery of [his wife] with complete strangers and then discuss how they would supply him with drugs in order that she be raped. Sharing her, his desire, in their own home.”

The court heard that the husband had also discussed with a second defendant, David Graves, 60, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, the need to find “something to knock her out completely”.

Graves, described as a “non-contact offender”, had supplied the husband with tablets to drug his wife, and in return the husband agreed to send him imagery of the abuse.

The husband had asked Graves to post the tablets to the house of a close relative of his wife’s who had recently died, the court heard. “The house where [the relative] had been living was empty,” Oakley told the court. “Does it get any worse than that?”

The court heard Graves then became “incredibly impatient” when there was a delay in sending the images. The husband told him “he tried the tablets but they tasted so bitter and his wife thought there was something wrong with the curry,” Oakley said. “Obviously the tablets he had put in the food.”