WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Amanda Stanhope, from Manchester, has told how she feared she had Alzheimer’s after being unable to remember what happened at night with her partner
09:06, 06 Jul 2026Updated 09:12, 06 Jul 2026
Amanda Stanhope said it took years for her to share her ordeal (Image: Anything Goes With James English)
A courageous mother has spoken out about the horrific abuse she endured at the hands of her former fiancé — who spent years raping her while she lay unconscious after taking sleeping tablets.
Amanda Stanhope had no idea what was being done to her — and each morning her partner would taunt her with the chilling words: “You had a good night last night.”
The remark left her completely bewildered, and she began to fear she was developing Alzheimer’s disease after repeatedly struggling to recall any intimacy with her partner just hours earlier.
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The torment weighed so heavily on her that she was eventually diagnosed with pseudodementia by a doctor — all while her partner was fully aware of the devastating truth.
He was subsequently charged by Greater Manchester Police with four counts of rape and one count of assault by penetration — but took his own life before he could be brought to trial.
Now, Amanda, from Manchester, has shared her harrowing ordeal from the very beginning.
How they met
Amanda Stanhope (Image: Anything Goes With James English)
Amanda was a mother of two when she first encountered the man who would go on to make her life a living nightmare. She was out dancing with her daughter when she noticed a stranger at the bar staring intently in her direction.
Speaking on the Anything Goes with James English podcast, she said: “He just stared. When I say stared – more like glared. He just obsessively stared all night. And I thought, ‘I’ve never quite met anyone like him.'”
This went on for up to four hours before he finally approached her and kissed her without uttering a single word. Despite his peculiar conduct, Amanda described him as charismatic and self-assured.
However, she subsequently discovered he was married and informed him she wanted no further involvement. Within a matter of weeks, the man revealed he had separated from his wife and was sleeping on a mate’s sofa.
Amanda said she was “gobsmacked” and ultimately offered him a place to stay after feeling sorry for him. It proved to be the worst decision of her life.
Warning signs
Amanda, who had worked as an interior designer for years, was completely besotted with her new boyfriend, and the initial three months were extraordinary. He would prepare meals and shower her with compliments, and she was certain they were “soulmates” — but then everything suddenly shifted.
She shared her story with James English (Image: Anything Goes With James English)
They were out socialising with her friends when he abruptly “roughly grabbed” her arm and “literally yanked” her away before hauling her into the car park.
She recalled: “I was in utter shock. I was speechless. I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ Then he absolutely laid into me verbally about how I embarrassed him. What did I think I was doing? I made him look stupid dancing with another man. I had no idea where it came from.”
Amanda said her instinct urged her to leave, yet the relationship continued for another five years.
Raped in her sleep
The mother said circumstances took an even more sinister turn one year into the relationship. The way she was being treated in the relationship, with so many enjoyable evenings destroyed by jealousy, left her unable to sleep and struggling with depression.
She was eventually prescribed antidepressants and sleeping tablets.
During this period, her partner began dropping disturbing hints, and she recalled: “We’d go and have a coffee and… oh it was awful. I completely remember. He’d go, ‘You had a good time last night.’
“And I’d sit there and think… ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ None at all. I’d rack my brains. And he did that daily. But I didn’t realise what he was doing.
Gisele Pelicot speaking out inspired Amanda to do the same (Image: Europa Press via Getty Images)
“I was thinking we must have had sex and I had fallen asleep. It was weird, I didn’t think he was doing that (rape). I just thought, ‘I’m on sleeping tablets, obviously we’ve started and I’ve just fallen asleep.’ But I was more worried that I couldn’t remember than what he was actually potentially doing.”
Amanda soon started noticing unexplained bruises on her arms and legs, and would regularly wake to find a towel beneath her — one she had no recollection of placing there herself.
She said: “Nothing was clear. I spent months trying to work it out. I thought I had Alzheimer’s. It was that bad.”
Caught in the act
Two years into the relationship, a completely traumatised Amanda was diagnosed with pseudodementia — a condition in which a person experiences symptoms resembling dementia, but whose reversible underlying cause is frequently associated with depression and poor mental health.
Utterly exhausted and broken down, Amanda described her partner as a “monster” whenever his mood changed, recalling how she had been “crucified” during a weekend break at a hotel.
She said it was her lowest point, and that she had taken more sleeping tablets than she should have in order to “escape the mental torture” he was inflicting upon her. Shortly afterwards, her “panicked” partner was pulling her up from the floor and even called an ambulance for assistance.
However, she recalled: “This is the worst. I came round to him like slapping me, and having horny sex with me. Obviously, I couldn’t move. I thought I was in a nightmare. I didn’t know if I was dead at that point.
“I remember lying there thinking ‘I can’t actually believe what he’s doing’ because he was getting off on my pain and I’d taken an overdose and was waiting for an ambulance and it was that moment where I thought there’s something very very wrong with him. Very wrong.”
Amanda Stanhope(Image: Amanda Stanhope)
She acknowledged that she knew she would eventually have to leave him, but at that time she described herself as utterly shattered, with no strength left to act.
In the aftermath, she still could not bring herself to use the word raped, as she had not yet understood that a partner could commit such an act. Nevertheless, she confronted him over what he had done while she was unconscious, and he apologised, promising it would never occur again.
Police
Greater Manchester Police apologised to Amanda (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
A year on, Amanda woke to the devastating reality of her fiancé raping her once more — and then again. She said: “I don’t believe he ever stopped at all because I still had the weird bruises. I was getting worse illness wise, memory loss, I look back on photos and I don’t even know the woman I became.”
Explaining why she hadn’t walked away, she added: “I was just surviving at this point. I couldn’t even make sense of anything any more. I was literally in survival mode. That was it. I just had to get through another day to survive another day.”
The mother described feeling imprisoned and subjected to constant emotional torment.
Eventually, she informed him the relationship had ended, prompting him to threaten suicide. Taking pity on him, she permitted him to stay on the sofa, only to wake up in her own bed to discover he was raping her.
It was following this deeply traumatic episode that she summoned the courage to report him to police.
Yet it required two years and three months for charges to be filed against him, before he took his own life six weeks afterwards.
Amanda Stanhope(Image: Amanda Stanhope)
Reflecting on her feelings, she said: “I was so angry because of what he put me through. I’d gone through all that with the police for nothing. And I knew that he was never going to be held accountable for what he did. I was so angry.”
A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said: “It is to our regret that Ms Stanhope did not get to see justice fully served at the end of this awful ordeal. We have written to her to apologise for areas where our service fell below that she had every right to expect.
“This is a serious and abhorrent crime that we are increasingly alive to and we want potential victims to approach us with the utmost confidence that we will investigate all reports at the victim’s pace with a clear determination to bring offenders to justice.
“We have made changes to improve our timeliness on investigations of such a serious nature and to ensure the best possible service to victims so that we can help secure them the most satisfactory outcome.”
Campaign
Having drawn courage from the inspirational story of Gisele Pelicot, Amanda felt ready to speak out and share her own harrowing experience.
She has since joined forces with Zoe Watts, who was raped by her husband while she slept — before he offered a deeply disturbing justification for having filmed the assault.
Zoe Watts is a fellow survivor (Image: Anything Goes With James English)
Together, they have launched a campaign called #EndEyeCheck, which seeks to challenge a system that enables men to evade justice after drugging and sexually assaulting their partners.
A hard-hitting opening statement on their website reads: “An online academy is training men how to drug and rape their wives. We’re two survivors and we’re taking on the system that enables it.”
If you or somebody you know has been affected by this story, contact Victim Support for free, confidential advice on 08 08 16 89 111 or visit their website, http://www.victimsupport.org.uk