MANCHESTER — A trial opened Monday at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court involving nine men accused of abusing a woman who was drugged, raped and sexually assaulted by her husband over a 20-year period.

The husband, who cannot be named to protect the victim's anonymity, pleaded guilty to multiple offences spanning more than two decades. Prosecutor Louise Oakley KC told the court the husband had "lived a double life masked in respectability."

Oakley said the husband initially took advantage of occasions when the victim had consumed enough alcohol to fall into a deep sleep, but over time increasingly administered a cocktail of stupefying drugs without her knowledge. From at least 2023, the husband began actively inviting other men to their home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and filmed himself and others raping the unconscious victim.

The husband's offending was discovered after undercover journalists infiltrated a chat on the Telegram messaging platform. He was arrested and his mobile phone was seized. Oakley described the phone as "like a confession booth" containing "over a million photographs and videos, cataloguing not only his abuse of [his wife] but abuse committed by others on her, including those in the dock today."

The nine defendants deny all charges. Two, Daniel Rayner, 42, from Whitstable in Kent, and David Graves, 59, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, are alleged "non-contact offenders" who encouraged the abuse online. The other seven — Philip Wild, 58, from Stockport; Jordan Wallace, 31, from Manchester; Alan Keelan, 42, from Manchester; Jonathan Kirk, 43, from Stockport; Robert Stewart, 70, from Stockport; Mohammed Sabir, 28, of no fixed abode; and Richard Townsend, 37, from Heywood in Greater Manchester — are alleged "contact offenders" who visited the couple's home and participated in the abuse.

Three other men — Sean Peers, 38, from Stockport; Keith Fotheringham, 59, from Dundee; and Graham Brougham, 74, from Northwich in Cheshire — have already pleaded guilty to related offences. Oakley said the prosecution would argue that suggestions the victim was pretending to be asleep or unconscious as part of a fantasy role play were a "smokescreen," and that what occurred was rape and sexual assault, pure and simple.

The trial continues.