A husband who drugged and raped his wife arranged for sedatives to be posted to his dead mother-in-law’s address, a court was told today.

Co-defendant David Graves, who the husband met online and jurors heard encouraged him to commit the rapes, offered to send him an unknown substance in January 2021, jurors heard.

Louise Oakley, prosecuting, told a trial of Graves and eight other men alleged to have been involved in abusing the woman: ‘So desperate is (the husband) that (he) sent him (his wife’s) mother’s address to post them to.

‘His mother-in-law had recently died and the house she had been living in was empty. Does it get any worse than that?’

The tablets did not arrive and the husband ‘accused Graves of not having posted them’.

Jurors have been told the husband - who cannot be named to protect his wife's identity - began abusing her in 2004 and started involving other men in 2015.

The woman's ordeal came to an end after journalists infiltrated an online messaging forum last October and police were called, the court heard.

The trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard tablets eventually arrived in March 2021 but, Ms Oakley said, they proved hard to crush and tasted ‘bitter’ when mixed in wine.

‘David Graves went on to provide practical solutions including that they be hidden in her food.’

Graves, 60, and the husband, who first contacted each other in 2018, exchanged a large volume of messages.

Graves asked for new material and making derogatory comments calling the wife a ‘slut’ and ‘old tart’ – adding ‘she deserves it’.

Ms Oakley said Graves became ‘incredibly impatient’ for the husband to send him images of the wife being abused.

‘(The husband) said to him, our perversion isn’t number one priority. Well, it must have been pretty close to the top of the list,’ Ms Oakley added.

The trial heard how the first stranger to come to the husband’s house was another defendant, Robert Stewart, 70, in 2016.

He left without doing anything because the wife ‘stirred’, Ms Oakley said, and this led to the husband wanting to obtain drugs after deciding alcohol alone was ‘unreliable’.

Stewart provided the husband with tramadol sleeping pills to use, the court was told.

It was a ‘blueprint for future offending’ despite the ‘inherent dangers’ of combining drugs and alcohol, the prosecution said.

The court heard the husband carried out online research including news articles and even charity websites about sleeping pills, side-effects and use of date rape drugs. 

He even visited a website in 2017 giving instructions on how to make date-rape drug GHB, jurors were told.

In the early part of 2019, the husband purchased Zolpidem sleeping tablets online, Ms Oakley said.

She read out messages which continued with numerous men at all hours, adding: ‘It’s hard to believe he was a working man. You have offending at night time, in the morning, in the early afternoon.

‘He thought what he was doing was fun.’

The prosecution said the husband was explicit to other men that his wife would not consent and ‘wouldn’t be interested’.

In one exchange with Graves in October 2018, Graves asked the husband ‘when did you last abuse her?’ and he replied: ‘Don’t keep a diary, lol (laugh out loud)’.

In another message with an unidentified male, he wrote: ‘Help me knock her out’.

This afternoon, the court heard further details of the husband’s online chats – which included being sent a message by anonymous user with an image of US television star Bill Cosby and the slogan, ‘she can’t say no if she’s unconscious’.

Corby has been accused of sex assault by dozens of women in a string of civil and criminal cases – including one where he allegedly gave a woman wine and a pill that left her incapacitated.

The trial was told he also continued to send images to Stewart, 70, despite the pensioner ‘nearly dying’ of Covid in 2022.

The court heard the husband made contact with another defendant, Philip Wild, via a wife-swapping website called FabSwingers.

Ms Oakley said Wild, who called himself Peachy Ass 2, allegedly visited the husband at 3am one night in August 2023, ‘crept’ upstairs and began assaulting the sleeping wife - but she stirred and he left.

The court heard the husband made contact with another defendant, Daniel Rayner, in 2025 via a Telegram group involving sex offenders.

Ms Oakley said people wanting to join had to ‘satisfy the administrator that you were a real person and could offer imagery of you committing sexual offences on your partner or another female’.

The husband was ‘required to take photographs and videos’ while his wife was unconscious and ‘in certain positions on the bed’ to ‘prove he was real and the imagery was live’.

Jurors were told Rayner declared himself being ‘always willing to drive for some fun’ and could ‘get hold of GHB’ – although he is not accused of visiting the husband’s home.

On trial with Graves are Jonathan Kirk, 43, a senior paramedic; Robert Stewart, 70, a retired DJ; Mohammed Sabir, 28, a recruitment consultant; youth football coach Alan Keelan, 42; dog walker Jordan Wallace, 31; taxi driver Philip Wild, 60; metal worker Richard Townsend, 38; and Daniel Rayner, 42.

All deny a variety of sexual offences.

In September, the woman's husband of 40 years admitted 62 charges including multiple rapes, jurors were told.

Opening the trial yesterday, Ms Oakley said Stewart sent a message to the husband after he visited the house, urging him to 'delete all images' and saying 'remember what happened to the guy in France'.

He wrote: 'Mate, have had a bad feeling about it all day. Delete all images from your phone etc as its too risky. Remember what happened to the guy in France.

'Delete me from your phone and life. If she caught you out it would be a whole lot of trouble and end your marriage and ruin your life.'

'The reference in the message related to the man in France who had been raping his wife, a lady by the name of Gisèle Pelicot,' Ms Oakley said.

Stewart, Wild, Sabir and Kirk, all of Stockport, Greater Manchester, Graves, of Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and Rayner, of Whitstable, Kent, deny conspiracy to rape between 2015 and 2025.

Graves and Rayner also deny conspiracy to assault by penetration between 2018 and 2025, while Stewart, Graves and Rayner deny conspiracy to administer a substance 'with the intention of stupefying or overpowering' the wife between 2015 and 2025.

Wild is also charged with sexual assault in August 2023, plus attempted rape and assault by penetration in February 2025. Sabir denies three rapes, in February 2025 and twice in September 2025.

Wallace, of Stockport, denies rape and attempted rape in May 2025, Keelan, from Manchester, denies two attempted rapes and an assault by penetration, all in June 2025.

Townsend, of Heywood, Greater Manchester, denies assault by penetration in July 2025, while Kirk denies two rapes in August 2025. Stewart denies two rapes in September 2025.

Four other men - Karl Lindsay, 56, of Taunton, Somerset, Graham Brougham, 74, of Northwich, Cheshire, Keith Fotheringham, 59, of Dundee, and Sean Peers, 38, of Stockport - have also pleaded guilty to various sexual offences at earlier hearings.

The trial, which is expected to take at least two months, continues.