A British man has admitted committing 60 offences of drugging and raping his wife without her knowledge for 20 years, in a stark reminder of the case of Dominique Pelicot in France.
The identity of the accused husband has been withheld by the court to protect his wife's legal right to anonymity. According to a BBC report, the man had already admitted some counts, including rape, at the Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
The couple has been married for decades.
The wife was supported by her family members when the accused, in his sixties, repeated the word guilty to dozens of charges, including multiple counts of rape, assault by penetration and administering a substance with intent. He became visibly emotional, and at one point, the judge invited him to sit down in the dock.
The husband, from the Stockport area of Greater Manchester, will be sentenced for the counts he has admitted at the conclusion of the trial.
The accused committed the offences against his wife since 2004. The crimes involving the other men were committed from September 2018 to November 2025.
{{/usCountry}}The accused committed the offences against his wife since 2004. The crimes involving the other men were committed from September 2018 to November 2025.
{{/usCountry}}A total of 14 men, including the husband, have been accused of offences against the same woman. Twelve other men have denied the sexual offences, while one other man previously admitted sexual offences against the survivor,
The 13 accused were identified as Philip Wild, 58, Sean Peers, 38, Jonathan Kirk, 43, Robert Stewart, 70, all from Stockport; Jordan Wallace, 31, Alan Keelan, 42 from Manchester; Graham Brougham, 74, from Northwich; Richard Townsend, 37, from Rochdale; Daniel Rayner, 42, from, Whitstable; David Graves, 59, from, Ilkeston; Karl Lindsay, 55 and Mohammed Sabir, 28.
The trial is due to continue in the coming weeks.
The Pelicot case
Dominique Pélicot was convicted and sentenced in December 2024 to the maximum 20 years in prison by a French court for systematically drugging his wife and orchestrating her mass rape by dozens of strangers over nearly a decade.
All the Frenchman's 50 co-defendants were also found guilty of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault, while their victim, Gisele Pelicot, sat in the packed courtroom to hear the sentencing, having waived her right to anonymity.
From 2011 to 2020, Dominique Pélicot secretly spiked his wife’s food and drink with heavy doses of anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. While she was completely unconscious, he raped her and recruited dozens of men online to abuse her at their home in Mazan, France.
Similar case in France
A 68-year-old man was jailed in France in 2021 after police discovered that he had drugged his wife for years so she could be raped by strangers while he filmed the assaults.
A total of 45 suspects were identified in an inquiry launched in 2020 in the southern city of Avignon, after the husband was caught trying to film underneath women's skirts in a store.
"It's rare to have so much evidence in a rape case. Here we have everything detailed, even if the victim, who was unconscious during the rapes, doesn't remember anything," said police commissioner Jeremie Bosse Platiere at the time.
"It's also unusual because of how long they were carried out (from 2010 to 2020) and the number of offenders," he said, adding that the husband had filmed all the rapes.
The woman, who was also in her sixties, only discovered the assaults when alerted by police, he added.
The videos were found on the husband's computer along with messages posted on casual sex meeting sites, inviting people to take advantage of his wife while she was knocked out by anti-anxiety drugs.
Those accused of rape range in age from 24 to 71.