The Manchester ‘Pelicot case’: more than twenty years of rapes, three guilty parties and eleven more accused
The victim's husband admits that he drugged and sexually assaulted her for more than two decades
LondonA few days ago, the weekly Charlie Hebdo claimed that the English "perhaps" had found their own Pelicot Case, in reference to Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who in 2024 publicly exposed that she was raped by a hundred men while she was unconscious, after being repeatedly drugged by her husband over the years. The satirical publication thus focused on a very similar drama that took place in Stockport, one of the commuter towns south of Manchester, and which became partially known in November 2025. On October 19, a major trial begins against eleven men accused of raping a woman while she was drugged. In the Pelicot trial, the public prosecutor brought 51 rapists before the court, including the husband.
The English victim is a resident of Stockport, who, in the first place, had allegedly been drugged and raped by her husband for more than two decades without her realizing it, due to the narcotic substances he administered to her. The perversion of the husband, a man in his sixties, who cannot be publicly identified to respect the woman's right to anonymity, intensified starting in 2018. It was then that he began inviting other accomplices to the family home so they could sexually abuse his wife, who was also incapacitated by the effect of the drugs.
The husband was arrested in October of last year. Initially, he denied all charges. But in mid-September of this 2026, he pleaded guilty to 60 crimes committed against his wife between 2004 and 2025. Among the criminal acts he has admitted are multiple rapes, sexual assaults, assaults with penetration, attempted rape, and the continued administration of a pharmacological substance with the intention of leaving her incapacitated, thus facilitating the sexual abuse. The husband has also admitted to having shared intimate photographs and videos of his wife without her consent.
This Wednesday, October 7th, the husband appeared again before the Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court. And by video conference from prison, he admitted to one more rape and one more sexual assault, committed in August of last year. Since he has pleaded guilty, he will no longer have to be tried for the admitted facts: he now awaits sentencing, which will be handed down when the process against the other defendants concludes, the men whom he himself invited to rape the woman.
Also yesterday, Wednesday, 38-year-old Sean Peers was added to the list of confessed aggressors, admitting to an assault with penetration committed in September 2024. Surprisingly, the judge has kept him on bail until the joint sentencing of the eleven defendants arrives. With him, there are now three men who have admitted to having raped and assaulted the woman: the husband, Peers, and 59-year-old Keith Fotheringham. The latter had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to administer a substance inhibiting the woman's will and to assaulting and raping her. In his case, and unlike Peers, he remains imprisoned like the husband and will be sentenced later.
The other aggressors
The parallel with the Pelicot case is evident. It lies, above all, in the role attributed to the husband. The prosecution maintains that he organized and facilitated the abuse by the other men. In this sense, the police claim that between 2018 and October 2025, he allegedly invited them to sexually abuse her while she was incapacitated by drugs. Some of the accused allegedly participated directly in the assaults; others are accused of having facilitated the abuse or of conspiring to commit it. The eleven involved are between 28 and 74 years old.
The eleven defendants deny the accusations and, therefore, will be tried. Among them are a paramedic, a former football club executive, a taxi driver, a university technician, and a youth football coach. One of them, Karl Lindsay, 55, and former chief executive of Taunton Town FC, is also accused of having provided the drugs used to incapacitate the victim and of having also organized the abuse. He also denies everything.
The prosecution's forecast is that the trial will last approximately nine weeks, until mid-December. The jury has already been selected, but the process has been delayed by legal and practical issues. One of these is that the defense recently received a statement from the husband explaining his version of events, which has forced the court to give the lawyers time to study it.
Apart from the number of people involved who will stand before the judge, the biggest difference with the Gisèle Pelicot case is that she herself voluntarily renounced her anonymity and turned the trial against her husband and the 50 accused into a public denunciation of sexual violence against women. In Manchester, on the other hand, the victim's identity is protected by law. Dominique Pelicot ended up sentenced to twenty years in prison; the rest of the accused were also found guilty, although with lighter sentences.