The trial of four men accused of sexual violence against Joanne Young, victim of her husband Philip who for 13 years had raped her, drugged her and offered her to others on internet dating sites, opened in the Crown Court of Winchester, in southern England. Richard Wilkins, 62, and Norman Macksoni, 48, face charges of rape, while Connor Sanderson-Doyle, 32, and Mohammed Hassan, 38, of sexual abuse, for events that occurred between 2016 and 2023: all have pleaded not guilty.
The prosecutor’s accusations
Her husband, a 50-year-old former Conservative councillor, had instead admitted his guilt in January to 48 crimes, including 11 rapes, and is now waiting to know the sentence. “He was looking for strangers willing to go to bed with his wife,” prosecutor Sarah Jones told jurors, according to whom since 2015 the man had been using drugs capable of putting her into “a deep sleep.” The police, who had singled him out for uploading violent pornographic material online, found videos on his devices of the woman tied to a bed while other men performed sexual acts on her. According to the prosecution, three of the defendants appear in the videos.
The precedent of Gisèle Pelicot
The atrocious and sordid story is reminiscent of that of Gisèle Pelicot, drugged for years by her husband Dominique, convicted in France in 2024 together with dozens of men he had recruited online to rape her.