UK man pleads guilty to using online forum to encourage sexual assault of unconscious women
Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Darren Conway
By Mitchell McCluskey, CNN
(CNN) — A man from North London pleaded guilty to charges related to encouraging other members of an online forum to sexually assault drugged victims, London’s Metropolitan Police announced on Friday.
Police discovered the forum in October 2025 and established a national coordination group, led by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), to investigate the matter.
The investigation led authorities to 52-year-old Darren Conway of Enfield, whom officers had identified as one of the group chat members.
On July 30, police executed a search warrant on Conway’s home, where they seized his digital devices and arrested him.
Messages on his devices revealed that Conway had urged other forum members to engage in sexual assault against drugged or sleeping women, later encouraging the perpetrators to share images in the chat, according to Met Police.
Through the chat room, Conway viewed sleeping women more than 10 times, police said.
“Conway’s actions were shocking. By encouraging others to engage in sexual offending against victims who were unconscious, asleep, or otherwise stupefied, he has put women at a serious risk of harm in their own homes — all for his own sexual gratification,” Met Police Commander Andy Day said.
On Friday, Conway appeared in London’s Wood Green Crown Court and pleaded guilty to nine counts of assisting or encouraging an offense, in addition to charges of voyeurism and possessing an extreme pornographic image.
In court, Conway wore a gray tracksuit and spoke only to confirm his name and to plead guilty, the UK’s Press Association (PA). reported.
He is set to be charged on October 30.
‘Vile acts against women’
The case is representative of a wider trend of online forums serving as platforms for offenders to encourage others to drug and sexually assault unconscious victims.
An international police operation uncovered a highly organized online ecosystem of offenders, Europol and Britain’s NCA revealed in July.
In the chatrooms, the predominantly male perpetrators coordinate assaults and share information and imagery of the abuse, authorities said.
Ciara Bergman, the CEO of Rape Crisis England & Wales – a charity that provides services to people affected by sexual violence and abuse – said that the scale and coordination of the drug-facilitated sexual abuse on the forums was “deeply alarming.”
“Sadly, though, they are not surprising,” Bergman added. “These abuses are rooted in the same misogyny and objectification which underpin violence against women and girls the world over.”
CNN conducted an undercover investigation into the issue, discovering online networks in which men encourage others to commit sexually violent acts against women.
The issue was brought to a global audience during the high-profile case of Gisele Pelicot in France. Pelicot’s former husband was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he solicited dozens of strangers to rape his then-wife while she was unconscious. The shocking crime ignited conversations around the presence of gender-based violence in France.
Since then, police have made several arrests and secured convictions in similar cases across Europe.
In many instances, the victims are unaware that they have been sexually assaulted until they are contacted by police, the NCA said.
Following Conway’s guilty plea, officers are continuing to work on identifying the individuals seen in the footage recovered from his seized devices.
Many of the victims are believed to reside in the UK, but some may live overseas, according to Met Police.
The chief prosecutor in the case, Tracy Easton, said that Conway had committed “vile acts against women in their own homes.”
“Organized drug-facilitated sexual assault is abhorrent and we are determined to work with policing to bring offenders to justice,” Easton said.
“I hope this guilty plea gives confidence to anyone who believes they may have been subjected to similar abuse to come forward.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Helen Regan contributed to this report.
