Warning: Some people may find details in this story distressing.
When his friends were found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting women at Christchurch bar Mama Hooch, he insisted he was innocent.
In court, the now 30-year-old’s text messages showed he regularly pursued women for sex. He described his targets as “b*tches” and “sluts”.
In 2014, the man wrote to the brothers who ran Mama Hooch, Danny and Roberto Jaz, describing women as “just holes we put it in boys, nothing more”.
Judge Paul Mabey KC found he was “indifferent” to consent, agreeing he and his friends were treating women as “no more than commodities for use and abuse”.
Danny and Roberto Jaz preyed on more than 20 women, often spiking drinks at Mama Hooch in Christchurch. (Source: 1News)
But at a trial in the Christchurch District Court earlier this year, the judge found there was not enough evidence to prove the man was guilty of sexual violating a woman.
The man was found not guilty of inappropriately touching the woman.
And his name will never be made public, with Judge Mabey KC granting his application for final name suppression in a hearing at the Christchurch District Court today.
He said it was a “clear cut case” that his name should not be published as there was a real risk he would suffer from extreme hardship.
“Even if there is publicity which includes the fact that he’s been acquitted, the real outcome in the eyes of the members of the public is first that he shouldn’t be acquitted and that he’s guilty by association of the Jaz brothers, and he’s just another Mama Hooch rapist,” he said.
While his name can’t be revealed, his text messages give an insight into the attitude held by some of the men who frequented Mama Hooch, including him.
Reasonable doubt: How the man beat his charge
The case against the man was unable to pass a key legal hurdle - prosecutors were not able to prove the allegation against him beyond a reasonable doubt.
Read more: Drugged and attacked: Woman's fight against Mama Hooch rapists
His legal woes began five years ago when his friends Danny and Roberto Jaz were charged with a litany of drug and sex offences.
When that case went to trial in February this year, prosecutors were able to prove Danny (the first man) and Roberto (the second man) had preyed on more than 20 women between 2015 and 2018.
It was shown the brothers had either spiked drinks at Mama Hooch bar, where they worked, or provided powder to women at a nearby restaurant before taking advantage of them.
They were convicted on 68 charges in total, with multiple victims describing blacking out or fading in-and-out of consciousness amid depraved sexual assaults.
A third man was charged alongside them, but was found not guilty of drugging and sexual assault charges in court. He was discharged without conviction today and granted final name suppression.
The prosecution then brought a second separate trial against the man in this story – the fourth man – claiming he joined in with the others to abuse a woman at a private house in August 2018.
They initially pushed for convictions against all four men, saying Danny and Roberto had drugged the woman, and everyone except Danny had sexually assaulted her in some way.
In the lead-up to the trial, Roberto admitted indecently assaulting the woman by touching her breasts, and most of the other charges were dropped.
The only remaining allegation when the ‘fourth man’ finally got to trial in May 2023 was the one against him: that he had sexually violated the woman.
The prosecutors struggled to prove the allegation. Sexual assault charges are notoriously hard to prosecute, often devolving into a “he-said, she-said” argument.
‘I was like a robot’
The allegation echoed many others connected to the Mama Hooch scandal: a woman claiming she had consumed a drink at the bar, before blacking out.
“I was like a robot,” she told the court from the witness box in May.
“This is a different feeling to just having a few drinks and being quite intoxicated at the end of the night, this was out of my control.”
She claimed that night – on August 5, 2018 – the man led her to a car and drove her to a private house.
The woman said her memory went hazy, and she was unable to remember anything else from the night, other than a snapshot of being sexually violated on a couch.
Brothers revealed as Mama Hooch drink spike rapists
Judge Mabey would go on to conclude she had been drugged and stupefied, saying her symptoms were consistent with those described by other women. But the judge couldn’t determine who had drugged her.
The man’s lawyers then called their own witness – the man’s friend – who had a very different version of events on that night.
This friend denied anything inappropriate took place, saying they were simply hanging out together after a night out.
The friend claimed the sexual assault “absolutely did not happen” and suggested they would never “lie to protect someone”.
In the end, Judge Mabey said the friend “impressed” him as a “truthful” person.
“I am left in a reasonable doubt about whether or not the act of violation occurred and entertaining that reasonable doubt I find you not guilty of the charge,” he said in his decision.
Text messages revealed
While the man’s name can’t be revealed, his text messages reveal the attitude he held towards women.
Police seized his phone and provided the messages to the court. They show he was regularly in contact with his friends Danny and Roberto Jaz.
For example, in a group chat with Danny and Roberto in 2014, the man joked about a woman's genitals, saying “just holes we put it in boys, nothing more”.
Two months later he asked a friend to “come over”, saying a stripper was on the way and they could “f**k her together softly”. When the friend refused, he called him a “f*ggot”.
The man repeatedly referenced drinking at Mama Hooch and makes it clear he was pursuing women.
The court heard a number of similar messages.
He was accused – and ultimately found not guilty – of sexually violating a woman at a house in August 2018.
Judge Mabey said the messages showed the man and his friends were “indifferent” about whether they obtained consent from women before sex.
“It could hardly be said that they are concerned about whether consent is available or not,” he said.
“That is not to suggest that every woman they have sexual contact with does not consent, but the point is that the communications would suggest that they would not care if they did not.”
However, in the end the messages did not prove consequential to the specific allegation the man faced.
The doubt from the two different stories, told by different people on the night left the judge unable to say beyond a reasonable doubt that the man sexually violated the woman.
SHARE ME