A man has admitted sexually assaulting a woman whose husband drugged and raped her without her knowledge over a period of more than 20 years, BBC News reports.
Sean Peers, 38, from Stockport, pleaded guilty to one count of assault by penetration on 15 September 2024. He had been due to stand trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
The woman’s husband, who cannot be named because of her legal right to anonymity, is accused of inviting 13 other men to abuse her at the family home in the Stockport area of Greater Manchester.
He has already admitted 60 offences against his wife, and has also pleaded guilty to a fresh charge of rape and one of sexual assault. Both of those offences took place last summer.
Keith Fotheringham, 59, from Dundee in Scotland, who is among the men accused of joining in the abuse, has already admitted various offences.
A further 11 men deny abusing the same woman between 2018 and November 2025 and are still due to stand trial.
Peers was granted conditional bail and will be sentenced once the trial involving the other men has concluded. The husband, who is no longer a defendant in that trial, will also be sentenced at the end of the case and has been remanded in custody.
A jury was sworn in early in September, but the case has been subject to a series of delays for legal and practical reasons.
On Tuesday, the nine women and three men on the jury, along with two female reserve jurors, were told that the husband had given a witness statement setting out “what it is he says happened” following his guilty pleas.
Judge Maurice Greene said the statement was a long one that contained “a lot of detail” and had been disclosed to all defence counsel. He said it included “lots of pages and lots of documents”, and that lawyers in the case were “going through it carefully” — work that was ongoing.
The jury was asked to return on Monday 19 October, when the prosecution case against the remaining 11 defendants is scheduled to open.
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