Former Taunton Town football chief admits offences linked to the drugging and rape of a woman by her husband

Karl Lindsay, 56, a father of five who rose from kit manager to chief executive of Taunton Town Football Club, pleaded guilty at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday to sending sedatives to a husband who drugged and repeatedly raped his wife, and to two further serious sexual offences committed between 2015 and 2025. Joanne Young, 49, who has waived her anonymity, sat in the public gallery and watched Lindsay enter his guilty pleas. Judge Maurice Greene remanded Lindsay in custody pending sentencing at the end of the trial.

Her husband Philip Young, 50, has already admitted 62 offences against his wife — including multiple rapes — after advertising her online to strangers while she lay bound and blindfolded.

Three other men — Graham Brougham, 74, Keith Fotheringham, 59, and Sean Peers, 38 — have also pleaded guilty; nine further defendants, including an ambulance paramedic and a children's football coach, go on trial Monday.

One defendant on trial, Connor Sanderson-Doyle, 32, told police he thought the encounter was 'all above board' and 'helping a married couple fulfil a kink', saying he had no idea Young was being drugged.