A man is facing a life sentence after raping his girlfriend while she was drugged or asleep on multiple occasions over more than a decade – including some attacks he carried out along with other people.
The defendant, who is in his 40s and has not been named for legal reasons, appeared at Northampton crown court on Tuesday to admit to 32 sexual offences committed while his victim was either drugged or asleep. He recorded some of the attacks.
He entered guilty pleas to 12 counts of rape, 14 counts of assault by penetration, and six counts of sexual assault. Of those, 10 offences were committed “together with a person unknown”, the court heard. The court did not hear how many other people were involved, but recordings of some of the offences were found on the defendant’s devices.
The earliest of the offences was committed in January 2014 and the abuse continued until last September, the court was told.
The man asked the judge partway through: “Can I just have one moment, please?” before sitting with his head down in the dock in silence for a short time.
The court heard that the defence disputed the prosecution’s claim the victim had been drugged during all of the offences.
The prosecutor, Alexandra Felix KC, told the court: “The prosecution maintains all of these offences were committed whilst the victim had been drugged and stupefied. That’s not accepted in its entirety.” She said the issue was whether the victim had been “asleep or had been drugged”.
The defence barrister, Nathalie Carter, told the court the defendant had “made it clear to me from the beginning he didn’t want to contest any matters”. She said there would not be a Newton hearing, which happens when the facts of a case are disputed between the prosecution and defence.
Four of the rape counts involved “a person unknown”, as well as four of the assault by penetration counts and two of the sexual assaults.
The judge, David Herbert KC, told the defendant, who is scheduled to be sentenced on 18 September, that a very substantial prison term was inevitable. He said he would need to consider whether a life sentence was appropriate.
Andrew Hopkinson, the district crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service East Midlands, said: “A man has pleaded guilty to 32 serious sexual offences committed against his partner. This was a sustained campaign of abuse and the victim has shown great courage throughout this process.
“We worked closely with Northamptonshire police to build a thorough and compelling case that resulted in him pleading guilty to dozens of offences.”
The hearing in Northamptonshire came less than a fortnight after the National Crime Agency (NCA) said it had uncovered a network of organised drug-facilitated sexual offending in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.
The agency has said online networks, “many as yet unidentified by law enforcement”, were allowing offenders to arrange to rape and abuse victims or arrange for sexual assaults to be filmed.
In many cases, these crimes were being perpetrated by people who exploited the trust often seen in long-term relationships to carry out the offences. The NCA gave the example of the high-profile Gisèle Pelicot case in France, in which her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her – as well as allowing dozens of other men to rape her while she was unconscious – in a campaign of abuse that lasted nearly a decade.
“We believe we have uncovered a truly international network with group members identified in dozens of countries spanning every continent,” said the NCA deputy director, Nigel Leary.
He accused online platforms of “enabling and supporting direct offending”, adding: “We’ve seen users actively engaging with other like-minded individuals discussing in graphic detail how they want to drug their victims to commit the most heinous sexual abuse.”
And he said that, in many, cases people who had been drugged may not even be aware they had been victimised.
Media organisations reporting on the Northamptonshire case have not been directly prohibited from identifying the defendant. But sexual offence complainants are legally entitled to lifetime anonymity. Due to the nature of the relationship between defendant and complainant at the time of the offences, to identify him would effectively identify her. Therefore, the Guardian and other titles have chosen not to name the defendant.
