Warning: This article contains distressing content

A husband who for years raped his wife while she was unconscious complained that tablets he was sent for drugging her tasted too bitter to slip into her curry and wine, a jury heard.

Prosecutors said the "sad reality of this case" was that by using websites such as fabswingers.com he had been able to find at least 13 of the "many men" whose fantasy was to "abuse an unconscious woman".

The husband and four other men have admitted a series of sexual offences against her, but nine others deny all charges and are standing trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.

Jurors heard the husband had entered into an "agreement" to supply videos of the abuse in exchange for knock-out drugs.

Louise Oakley KC, prosecuting, said the husband's offending was believed to have started in the early 2000s and at first had relied solely on alcohol.

From 2023, he began inviting men to the family home in the Stockport area of Greater Manchester to join the abuse, although "had been talking about it for years".

"Any right-minded human who walked into that bedroom with two eyes, two ears and half a brain would have realised she was not conscious," Oakley said.

"They knew. They wanted that."

Oakley said in the early days of the husband's offending "he wanted to share her but recognised that alcohol alone was not going to be enough".

The husband eventually became so "desperate" he even asked one alleged accomplice, David Graves, to post tablets to the empty home of a recently deceased elderly relative of his wife.

"Does it get any worse than that?" Oakley asked.

After he sent the tablets, 59-year-old Graves messaged the husband suggesting they would "finally get some use" out of his wife.

Samples of chat logs read in court included messages from the "incredibly impatient" Graves complaining about a lack of new images.

Oakley said there were at times "daily" messages, sent at all hours of day and night.

Oakley said that in an effort to "appease" Graves, the husband had sent material he had previously recorded, only for Graves to complain the images were "old" and he had "seen them".

The husband complained using alcohol was "unreliable" and he was struggling to put her into a deep enough state of unconsciousness to get new material.

Oakley said: "The imagery was old, he needs to do better, [the husband] realises to do better and to get more imagery he needs something to knock her out properly and that was the conversation he was having with David Graves."

The pair appeared to fall out after Graves claimed he had posted to the husband tablets that failed to turn up.

The drugs eventually arrived in March 2021, and soon after Graves asked: "So what's plan?"

The husband replied: "Hard to dissolve in liquid."

When Graves told him he had to "crush them", the husband responded with an expletive and said: "I know that."

Graves replied: "Don't get stroppy."

He then suggested sprinkling them into her food "with gravy".

Oakley told the jury: "David Graves provides practical advice, practical solutions, including the suggestion they be hidden in her food, and he was anxious whether [the husband] has 'got anything for him' in terms of imagery.

"To get the imagery there had to be the abuse first of all. That was the agreement, wasn't it?

"David Graves would provide the tablets to enable the [husband] to abuse his wife. He would carry on the physical acts and supply him with the imagery.

"That was the conspiracy."

At one stage, Graves asked if the husband had ever invited anyone to their home in person.

He replied: "One guy has been round when she was pissed, saw her naked on bed but she moved and his bottle went."

Oakley said the husband was active on a "swinging" website called fabswingers.com by 2023.

"As with all his conversations over the last 20 or so years, he did not hide the fact that [his wife] was, and would be, an unaware third party," she told the jury.

"His profile specifically referred to her being 'out of it'."

She said he had used the site to identify men in the Stockport area.

"At no point did he ever suggest he and [his wife] were engaged in a sleepy role play or fantasy," Oakley said.

"She was quite clearly wasted, unconscious, out of it - however best to describe the fact she was completely unaware and unable to give consent to anything that happened to her.

"And the sad reality of this case is that there are many, many men out there whose fantasy is to have sex with and abuse an unconscious and unresponsive woman.

"He found a large number of them, and we suggest some of them sit in this dock today."

Graves, who is described as an alleged "non-contact offender" because he did not physically attend the home address, denies conspiracy to rape, conspiracy to assault by penetration and conspiracy to administer a substance with intent.

Mechanic Daniel Rayner, 42, from Whitstable in Kent, is also considered an alleged non-contact offender and denies the same charges.

Alongside them in the dock are alleged "contact offenders" paramedic Jonathan Kirk, 43; taxi driver Philip Wild, 59; amateur football coach Alan Keelan, 42; recruitment agency worker Mohammed Sabir, 28; Jordan Wallace, 31, who worked for a building supplies agency; sheet metal worker Richard Townsend, 37, and Robert Stewart, 70, who was retired.

Contact offenders Keith Fotheringham, 59, from Dundee in Scotland; Sean Peers, 38, from Stockport; Graham Brougham, 74, from Northwich in Cheshire, and non-contact offender Karl Lindsay, 55, from Taunton in Somerset, have pleaded guilty to a number of offences.

The trial continues.