A man accused of sexually assaulting a mother told police he “did not know” she had been drugged, a court has heard. The woman’s husband was a former Tory councillor.

Philip Young, 50, allegedly advertised his wife, Joanne Young, 49, on Craigslist, seeking strangers to sexually abuse her while she was blindfolded, restrained and apparently incapacitated by drugs.

The jury heard that the invitation was presented as a sexual “kink” shared by the couple. Connor Sanderson-Doyle responded to the advert and was filmed assaulting Ms Young during an encounter in 2016.

The court was shown footage of the disturbing incident, in which Sanderson-Doyle, then aged 21, wore a mask while carrying out a sex act on the blindfolded mother-of-three.

When he was arrested in 2025, Sanderson-Doyle told police: “I could tell she felt uncomfortable, which made me feel uncomfortable, so I stopped.”

“I kind of looked at him (Young) and he said something like, ‘She’s not feeling it tonight,’ so I left,” he said, according to a transcript.

Sanderson-Doyle said he believed the arrangement was “all above board” and “legit”, and that he thought he was helping a married couple act out a sexual “kink”.

“I didn’t know some guy was drugging his wife and getting men around to rape her. That’s f*cking gross,” he told officers.

“I was so shocked when you told me about it this morning,” he said in the recorded interview transcript.

“It’s not an excuse. What has happened to this woman was horrible. It’s upsetting that this guy has done this and involved me in it,” he told investigators.

He described Young as an “odd-looking, chubby guy” who appeared to be recording the assault with a “proper big camera”.

Young, a business consultant, pleaded guilty earlier this year to multiple sexual offences against his wife of 20 years.

Four men he allegedly invited to the couple’s home in Swindon are now on trial at Winchester Crown Court. The charges, covering alleged incidents between 2016 and 2023, range from rape to sexual touching.

Sanderson-Doyle, 32, Richard Wilkins, 62, Norman Macksoni, 48, and Mohammed Hassan, 38, all deny the allegations.

RELATED: Tech Stocks Sink as Nasdaq Plunges More Than 600 Points

Prosecutor Saraj Jones KC told the jury that the Crown’s case was not that the defendants had given Ms Young the substances, but that their “effects” on her “were apparent” to them.

The allegations against Young came to light after police visited his address while investigating the downloading of extreme pornography.

Ms Jones said officers went to speak to Young on July 4, 2023.

She said when he gave access to his phone to check, they found a number of other ‘intimate’ images of his wife. She said: ‘In short, that led to identification of images that show intimate images of Joanne Young had been shared from the device, taken on the device and shared.

‘The investigation was much wider and all Mr Young’s devices were seized and the investigation begun.’

The jury, made up of eight men and four women, were shown the disturbing videos of the alleged sexual abuse by three of the four defendants

Ms Jones told the jury the men were expected to claim they believed Ms Young consented to the sexual activity.

But said that this was a ‘last desperate throw of the dice to convince you and perhaps even themselves that they are not rapists or sexual offenders’.

Macksoni, of Bedfordshire, denies rape, while Wilkins, of Swindon, has pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual assault.

Sanderson-Doyle, of Swindon, denies sexual assault and sexual touching, while Hassan, also of Swindon, has pleaded not guilty to sexual touching.

The trial continues.

ENDS

In the years before his death at 86, Sir Patrick Stewart spoke candidly about his complicated family life and his deep regret over becoming estranged from his adult children.

Stewart, who died on Wednesday after battling Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, told the Irish Independent in 2023 that his estrangement from his son Daniel, 59, and daughter Sophie, 54, had caused him “significant grief.”

“Given that I’m separated from my children now – we don’t have relationships – they have become very important,” Stewart said.

The actor admitted he was both surprised and consumed by regret over his “non-existent” relationship with Daniel and Sophie, whom he had during his marriage to his former wife, Sheila Falconer. The couple were married from 1966 until 1990.

“I never thought this would happen, but both my children are in their 50s – they’re not children anymore, they’re adults,” Stewart said. “And my relationship with them is practically non-existent.”

Stewart accepted responsibility for the breakdown in those relationships, acknowledging that he had put his career ahead of his family.

In the interview, Stewart said that “not a day goes by” without him regretting the situation. He described being “pained by the memory” of his children and the people they had become.

He said he was troubled by the responsibility he felt, believing his children had become who they were partly because of his influence—or his lack of it.

Stewart acknowledged that he “could’ve done better as a parent, when [his] kids were little.”

“I was just obsessed with my work, and everything else took second place,” he said. “I’m trying to correct that now whenever possible with my grandchildren. And my own children seem to have forgiven me.”

Stewart also addressed his relationship with Daniel and Sophie in his 2023 memoir, Making It So, describing it as “a work in progress.”

“The hurt caused by my split with their mother has never fully gone away,” he wrote. “I do get on wonderfully with their children – my four remarkable grandchildren, the eldest in his early twenties and the other three in their teens.”

Stewart married three times: first to Falconer, from 1966 to 1990; then to producer Wendy Neuss, from 2000 to 2003; and finally to singer Sunny Ozell, whom he married in September 2013.

Stewart and Ozell first met in 2008, when, as he told People in 2022, she was working as a waitress at a restaurant in Brooklyn.

Stewart, who had been performing in Macbeth in Brooklyn at that time, said that they got to chatting after she said she’d ‘wanted to see’ the production.

‘It was the only time in my life I’ve given someone my telephone number and said, “Call me, I can get a ticket,”‘ he said. ‘And that’s what we did. And she came backstage afterward and we had dinner and here we are.’

The two exchanged vows in Lake Tahoe in 2013, with Stewart’s friend and colleague Ian McKellen officiating the proceedings.

At the time of their wedding, Stewart was 73, while Ozell, a jazz singer, was 35.

Ozell told The Daily Mail in 2015 of the age gap: ‘He is so youthful and I guess I’m kind of an old worry wart so we bridge the gap. 

‘It doesn’t come up much. He’s in better shape than me, which infuriates me.’

In a 2022 interview with People, Stewart spoke about his relationship with his spouse, saying: ‘I’ve never met anyone like her before.’

He added: ‘She is so smart and so informed. And her intellectual accomplishments are extraordinary. She remembers everything.’

Stewart’s death at age 86 was confirmed in a statement published to his Instagram page on Thursday.

The statement read: ‘We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.’

‘He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all,’ the statement revealed. 

‘We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.’

The character actress who helped bring one of the 2000s’ most cherished romantic comedies to life has been seen in Los Angeles this week.

Born in Brooklyn, she attended school alongside Barbra Streisand before beginning her acting career as Streisand’s understudy in the Broadway production of Funny Girl.

She went on to appear in a celebrated 1980s film featuring a cast that included Lawrence of Arabia star Peter O’Toole.

In the 1990s, she also became a memorable presence on an iconic sitcom, playing the title character’s self-absorbed aunt—a woman whose seven wealthy husbands had all died before her.

Throughout her decades-long career, she portrayed the mothers of characters played by Ben Affleck and Adam Sandler, while also appearing alongside Angelina Jolie before Jolie became famous.

Now 86, she looked polished in a structured white blouse, black trousers and elaborate drop earrings as she was seen out in her wheelchair this week.

So, can you identify her?

The answer is Lainie Kazan, beloved for her portrayal of Maria Portokalos, the formidable matriarch at the center of the family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

The Daily Mail has contacted Kazan’s representative for comment.

Released in 2002, the sleeper hit was a culture-clash romantic comedy starring screenwriter Nia Vardalos as Toula, a Greek American woman in Chicago who falls for a WASP character played by John Corbett.

When Toula objects to her ‘stubborn’ father’s belief that ‘the man is the head of the house,’ Maria delivers the film’s most enduring line: ‘The man is the head, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants.’

The cast also featured NSYNC heartthrob Joey Fatone and SCTV legend Andrea Martin, while the film was made on a modest $5 million budget.

It went on to take more than $350 million worldwide, earning Vardalos an Oscar nomination for best screenplay and spawning two sequels.

‘I never thought it would be a hit. I never thought anybody would see it,’ Kazan told IndieWire. ‘Usually you can tell when a movie has legs, but we didn’t know that.’

Lainie Levine was born in Brooklyn in 1940 and attended high school with a young Barbara Joan Streisand. She later enrolled at Hofstra University, where she took part in student musicals with Francis Ford Coppola and James Caan.

After fellow students began teasing her with the nickname ‘Lainie Levine, the sex machine,’ Coppola encouraged her to use her mother’s maiden name, Kazan, professionally.

‘That afternoon I went to audition for the Westbury Music Theater, and came away with a new name and an Equity card. In that name,’ she told AMNY. 

By 1961, she made her Broadway debut in The Happiest Girl in the World, a take-off on Lysistrata with music by the 19th century composer Jacques Offenbach and lyrics by EY ‘Yip’ Harburg, who had written the words to Over the Rainbow.

Three years later, Kazan got a job understudying Streisand – who had by then dropped the second ‘a’ from her first name – in Funny Girl on the Great White Way.

Streisand was so determined to retain her stage time that only 18 months into the run, when she was afflicted with strep throat, did Kazan finally go on in her place, and even then only for one matinee and one evening performance.

ALSO READ: Pensioner Killed After Telling Child to Stop Riding Lime Bike on Pavement

As her acting career sputtered, Kazan unlocked a new facet of her professional life in 1970 when she posed topless for an eight-page spread in Playboy, instigating her run as a singer in Hugh Hefner’s jazz clubs.

‘That turned everything around again for me,’ she reflected decades later to the Los Angeles Times. ‘I got a lot of jobs from that.’

Her flesh-flashing magazine shoot, in which she said Hefner projected her as ‘the Jewish Sophia Loren,’ became the inspiration for a comic book character called Big Barda devised by Jack Kirby, creator of the Avengers and the X-Men.

Kazan herself ended up running two of Hefner’s nightspots, Lainie’s Room East in New York City and Lainie’s Room West in Los Angeles. 

Amid her success as a cabaret impresaria, she frequently appeared on The Dean Martin Show and became friendly enough with the Rat Pack that Frank Sinatra fondly referred to her as the ‘Jew broad,’ she told Page Six.

In 1982, she finally earned a part in a movie that made a lasting impact – My Favorite Year, a comedy directed by actor Richard Benjamin that starred Peter O’Toole, Joseph Bologna, Jessica Harper and even Broadway lyricist Adolph Green.

During the same decade, she was nominated for an Emmy for her guest role as the mother of Dr Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) on the hospital show St Elsewhere.

In the 1988 tearjerker Beaches, she played the domineering stage mother of the character played by Mayim Bialik as a child and Bette Midler as an adult. 

Kazan returned to My Favorite Year when it was adapted into a Broadway musical that opened in 1992, and although the production ultimately flopped at the box office, she earned a Tony Award for her performance.

Fans of 1990s television will instantly recognize Kazan from The Nanny as the Fran Drescher character’s raucous, gaudy Aunt Freida.

Aunt Freida’s comic plotlines centered on such subjects as her string of rich dead husbands, her foiled ambitions to be a singer and her feud with her sister-in-law, the title character’s mother Sylvia, played by Renee Taylor.

In one exchange, Sylvia ribs Freida for incorrectly saying the name of the luxury ceramic line Lladro, to which Freida sneers: ‘You can pronounce it, I can afford it.’

Taylor and her husband Joseph Bologna often worked as a writing and directing team, including on the 1996 romantic comedy Love Is All There Is.

Set in the Bronx’s Sicilian community, the film was a Romeo and Juliet story centered on characters played by soap star Nathaniel Marston and the young Angelina Jolie, with Kazan as the boy’s mother and Paul Sorvino as the girl’s father.

In the 21st century, Kazan’s career has included playing the mother of Adam Sandler’s character in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, as well as a woman seduced by Sandler’s womanizing hairdresser in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.

Kazan also played the mother of Ben Affleck’s character in his 2003 mega-flop Gigli, a romantic comedy starring him with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez. 

She acted in the 2000 comedy Bruno, the only film ever directed by Shirley MacLaine, and guested on hit TV shows ranging from Boston Legal and Grey’s Anatomy to The King of Queens and Modern Family to Desperate Housewives and Will & Grace.

Onstage, she has toured nationally in Fiddler on the Roof and featured off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues, as well as holding a prominent role in a 1994 Broadway production of the satirical Nikolai Gogol play The Government Inspector.

On the personal front, Kazan has a daughter called Jennifer Bena, 54, by her former husband Peter Daniels, whom she met when he was an associate orchestra conductor on Funny Girl after he served as Streisand’s accompanist during her early pre-fame career as a nightclub singer.

Kazan has openly copped to romantic collisions with Sinatra, Warren Beatty and Bob Dylan, but never remarried after she and Daniels divorced in 1976.