Wife drugged and raped by husband who invited strangers via Grindr, Winchester court hears

Joanne Young told Winchester Crown Court she fled to her bathroom after realising a stranger was in her bedroom. Her ex-councillor husband faces trial alongside four men accused of sexual attacks.

Wife locked herself in bathroom after husband brought stranger to sexually assault her, court told

Joanne Young woke one night blindfolded and restrained, believing she was having sex with her husband — until she felt a hand on her wrist that she knew could not be his. According to The Sun, she told Winchester Crown Court how she fled to the bathroom, naked and in shock, unsure whether to come back out.

"I didn't know what to do as there was this man in my house and I was naked," Young said in evidence. "I was staying in the bathroom for a bit not knowing whether to come out or not."

Young, who has waived her anonymity, is the complainant in a trial involving four men accused of sexually assaulting her. They were allegedly recruited by her then-husband Philip Young, a former councillor, who is said to have advertised her on Craigslist, Grindr and swinging websites while she was drugged and unaware.

The advertisements were accompanied by photographs showing Joanne "inanimate and tied to the bed blindfolded", the court heard.

'Emphatically monogamous' wife described as having no knowledge of attacks

Sarah Jones KC, prosecuting, told jurors that Joanne had only a "nightmare" sense of another person being present beside her bed. She described the complainant as "emphatically monogamous" with "vanilla" sexual tastes, who would regularly wake up blindfolded and handcuffed with no recollection of having been abused.

On the night she described in evidence, Joanne said she realised the hand on her wrist could not belong to her husband because he was at the end of the bed. She said she was "obviously really shocked because you don't expect someone else to be in your bedroom".

Her husband, she told the court, said to the other person: "Get down." The person ducked behind the bed. Joanne ran to the bathroom.

"Then when I came out, I didn't hear any noise in the bedroom. I didn't really know what to do. It's just such a shock," she said.

The following morning, Philip Young told her he had been on online forums and "had invited someone round to watch them having sex".

Adverts sought men 'as close to Swindon as possible'

Winchester Crown Court heard that Young had advertised for men of "any age, any race but as close to Swindon as possible so that when the circumstances were right they could be seized upon immediately".

Ms Jones said Young "presented it as a kink for both of them", but there was no information from Joanne to support that claim. The couple would share a nightly drink that "plunged Joanne into a state where anything could be done to her by whoever answered and she would be unaware or unable to remember", it was said.

Three of the four defendants featured in films seized by police, the court heard.

Fourth defendant allegedly contacted Young via Grindr in February 2023

The hand Joanne felt on her wrist that night belonged, jurors heard, to the fourth defendant Mohammed Hassan. He had allegedly exchanged messages with Young on Grindr before going to the couple's home in February 2023.

Ms Jones said Young instructed the other man to "get down" once Joanne became aware of him. The prosecutor noted that Joanne is severely short-sighted and without her contact lenses or glasses could not see clearly enough to identify who was ducking away.

"Her brain struggled to take this in, in the immediate aftermath," Ms Jones told the court.

Joanne told police she remembered being "really terrified, scared of something and I don't know what."

Video showed complainant 'almost inert on the bed'

One of the other defendants, Connor Sanderson-Doyle, was 21 when he responded to a Craigslist advertisement, the court heard. He messaged Young to ask about "limits" and what his wife liked. Young replied that it was a "bit of a quickie f**k and go".

A video uploaded in June 2016 showed Joanne lying on the bed, restrained, and audibly saying "Ow" as a masked Sanderson-Doyle allegedly sexually assaulted her. Ms Jones described Joanne as appearing "almost inert", with only "occasional grunts" indicating any residual physical awareness.

"Her engagement is entirely lacking," the prosecutor told jurors.

At one point in the footage, Joanne "becomes more and more vocally averse to what is being done to her" and can be heard saying: "No let go."

The camera also showed Philip Young watching as "the stranger crawl[ed] over his wife", Ms Jones said, describing the moment as "particularly bleak".

The video, she added, demonstrated that Joanne "was clearly under the influence of something that was not only affecting the quality of her speech but her ability to fully direct or co-ordinate her limbs".

Sanderson-Doyle later told police he had responded to the advert because he was "a young guy trying new and different things".

Ms Jones told the jury: "It turned out that what she had thought was a literal night terror was not a baseless fear or some kind of nightmare. Somehow, Mrs Young, without being able to recall what was being done to her body without any consultation, had a sense that pressure was being placed upon her to agree to others being involved in her and her husband's intimate life. The very idea terrified her. The reality would turn out to be even worse."

The trial continues at Winchester Crown Court.

Source: The Sun