Heaton Chapel serial rapist destroyed my life, victim says (2024)

Published

12 July 2024

A woman who was threatened and controlled by a "depraved" rapist while working as a sex worker has said she has been left "destroyed".

Nicholas Moxham, 52, has been jailed for at least 19 years after being convicted of a series of sex offences against women and children.

He had persuaded sex workers to move in with him and then abused, raped and filmed them.

Colette, who has waived her right to anonymity to speak to the BBC, said Moxham threatened to break her neck and left her "questioning everybody, everything."

The judge at Manchester Crown Court told Moxham, of Heaton Chapel, Stockport, that his offences “were designed to satisfy your own deviant and selfish sexual desires".

The trial heard how he lured six women to his home in the early weeks of the first Covid lockdown, in March 2020, by persuading them he could move their sex work businesses online.

He went on to rape some of them in their sleep, control their finances and threatened them into carrying out "disgusting and degrading” sex acts for him and others.

Collette told BBC North West Tonight Moxham approached her on the street in Manchester and offered to help her.

“It was great at first, he was harmless, he was just taking me to get the drugs I was smoking, he was letting me take clients to his house," she said.

Moxham booked appointments for the women, invited clients to his house as well as another house in Longsight, Manchester.

He then used spyhole cameras and cameras hidden in pens to film the encounters.

The jury heard how Moxham would encourage or coerce his victims into performing other sexual services online, and “directed” some of his victims in p*rnographic videos.

Collette said his demands became increasingly degrading but he would make threats if they refused to do them.

“Really you couldn’t say no because it was out on the streets or Nick’s way," she said.

“It made money for him and the things he was asking were going too far.

“He threatened to break my neck, tell my family, I was also on bail at the time and he threatened to get me arrested."

She added: "It destroyed me.

"He’s just left me numb. It’s left me questioning everybody, everything."

The trial heard how Collette and the other women fell into a spiral of debt after Moxham began to charge them for staying at his house and they were told to work off what they owed by taking more appointments.

In May 2020, Collette left his house after she learned Moxham had raped her in her sleep, something she later found out had happened before and he had filmed the attack.

“That man thinks he’s untouchable, he think’s he’s above the law,” Collette said.

Another victim read out her impact statement at the hearing, telling Moxham: "You made me feel dirty, exposed and hurt.”

“Now I don’t believe anything and I don’t trust anyone… I’ll be alone for the rest of my life because of you."

Moxham was arrested in a raid on his home in August 2021.

Det Sgt Lee Attenborough said his hard drive contained “huge catalogues” of covertly recorded material, some of which showed him raping women while they were unconscious.

He said Moxham “treated his victims like a possession, like something that he owned".

The sentencing hearing heard Moxham earlier admitted sexual offences against children who were attending laser and go-kart events at a school in Manchester, organised by a company he ran.

He used a camera hidden in leaves to film himself abusing three children separately during 2016 and filmed children in the toilets between 2018 and 2019, the court heard.

Judge Potter said none of the children who had been filmed or abused by Moxham had been traced by police.

The court heard Moxham's offending had started decades earlier when he was detained for four years in 1992 after wounding a woman.

That attack was motivated by “anger issues towards females due to their disinterest” in him, the judge said.

Moxham also received a caution in 1997 for indecent exposure.

The judge said his offences were “targeted to exploit the vulnerability of others you preyed upon – be they sex workers addicted to drugs or children entrusted into your care”.

Moxham was found guilty of 32 offences, including rape, controlling prostitution for gain, slavery and sexual assault.

He had earlier admitted further offences, including sexual assault of a child under 13, making and taking indecent photographs of children and keeping a brothel used for prostitution.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 19 years.

Listen to the best ofBBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external. You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk, external

Related Topics