'Over a million' abuse images found on phone of UK man who drugged, raped wife: prosecutor

A man who drugged and raped his wife over two decades and allegedly invited strangers to participate had “over a million photographs and videos” on his phone cataloguing the abuse, a UK court heard on Monday. The court in Manchester, northwest England, is hearing the trial of nine men accused of various sexual offences against a woman who was abused by her husband — a man in his 60s who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity. The husband filmed and shared images of the abuse on the “internet and social media applications” with “other like-minded men”, prosecutor Louise Oakley told the court. Some of the defendants allegedly “hid behind a screen” and conspired with the husband over the years to administer substances to the woman so she could be “used and abused”.

And starting 2023, the prosecutor said, the husband began inviting men around to their home and filmed himself and others raping her while she was unconscious. It is the second case involving a man accused of inviting strangers to take part in abusing his wife currently being heard in Britain. A trial in Winchester in the south involving four men opened last week. Global awareness of the crime, known as organised drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA), has grown following the high-profile conviction in France of Dominique Pelicot , who drugged and raped his then-wife Gisele for nearly a decade alongside strangers. Oakley told the jury in Manchester that the husband’s phone, which was seized when he was arrested, was like a “confession booth” including “barbaric sexual fantasies” going back to 2004. “There were over a million photographs and videos cataloguing not only his abuse of his wife…