Another man is on trial in Christchurch in relation to women being drugged and sexually assaulted at a popular city bar. Photo / Pool
WARNING: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.
A fourth man charged over the prolific drugging and sexual assaults of women at a central Christchurch bar has been found not guilty.
The man was accused of sexually violating a woman after taking her home from the bar in August 2018.
But today, after a short trial in the Christchurch District Court, Judge Paul Mabey found him not guilty on the single charge.
He cannot be named yet because of ongoing suppression orders.
His case follows the almost three-month trial of three associates on a litany of charges of stupefying, raping and assaulting more than 20 women.
The offending was all linked to the same popular bar and a nearby restaurant.
In the first trial, Judge Mabey found two of the men guilty on almost 70 charges.
The third man denied multiple charges of sexual assault and stupefying and was acquitted on every count except one of offering to supply an illicit drug.
The second trial originally involved the three men from the earlier trial and the fourth man.
The fourth man had successfully argued to have the allegations against him - relating to just one female complainant - heard separately.
Last week, most of the charges against the other offenders were dropped - but one of the men convicted of rape admitted a charge of indecent assault.
During the two-day trial, Judge Mabey heard evidence from the victim about the violation.
She explained she had been drinking with a friend and was “fairly intoxicated” but “not terribly drunk”.
She was fully aware of everything that was happeninguntil she had her last drink at the bar.
“After that things become pretty hard to remember. I remember getting into a car with a guy,” she said.
“I don’t remember talking to him, I don’t remember meeting him but I remember getting into his car.”
She was taken to a suburban townhouse and had only flashes of memory.
“I remember lying on a couch. I didn’t have my jeans off… I don’t remember taking them off…. The guy that had taken me home had his hand between my legs,” she said.
“I felt like I could not control what I was doing. I remember getting taken upstairs... waking up the next day with the man who’d taken me home. I woke up to another man entering the room. He got into bed. He was starting to touch me, wanting to initiate something with me.
“I just remember saying ‘stop, get out’ - but not forcefully [because] I felt sedated, strange…”
While the convicted rapist admitted before the trial he had indecently assaulted the woman, his associate maintained he never touched her.
He did not dispute he was at the house at the time - but denied there was any sexual contact with the woman.
A woman at the house at the same time gave evidence in support of the offender, saying the assault “absolutely did not happen”.
“She was fine. She was friendly, she was coherent,” said the woman - the partner of one of the men involved in the first trial.
“I had no reason to worry. Her eyes were always open, she wasn’t lying down.
“If I had thought something was wrong I would not have left her there.”
The woman denied lying in court to protect the man and her partner - saying she was simply in court to share what happened that night.
During the short trial, Judge Mabey was also presented with messages between the offender and his associates about women in which theyreferred to women as “b***hes”, “sluts” and “just holes… and nothing more” and shared lewd details of their sexual desires and conquests.
At one point the man told his mates he had “a stripper coming over” to perform a sexual act on him and invited another man to “come over” and “f**k her together softly”.
The judge said the messages showed that the man and his mates were “unconcerned with whether consent was available or not” when it came to women they “used as they see fit”.
“[The offender] was indifferent to the consent of a woman,” Judge Mabey said in court.
In another message exchange between the man and his sister soon after they found out the sexual violation victim had complained to police and his associates had been spoken to, the man said it was “important” for him “to find out what they said exactly about that night”.
He said he had asked the others but their answers had been “very vague”.
His sister replied: “Well the story needs to be the same… otherwise it will be dodgy.”
The court heard that the man deleted a significant number of messages and apps when he learned police wanted to speak to him in relation to Operation Sinatra - the investigation into the bar and the now-convicted offenders.
Judge Mabey found the man not guilty of the charge.
He said he was not convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the assault happened.
However, he said the man was “not an innocent participant” to the bigger picture: the ongoing drink spiking and assault of numerous women at the bar.
“[The offender] was not blind to the fact drugs were available [at the bar] and [his associate] knew how to get them.”
As the judge’s decision was read and the verdict given, the man sat wringing his hands, rubbing his chin and shifting uncomfortably in his seat, his face drawn.
He was granted interim name suppression at the beginning of the trial and after delivering his verdict Judge Mabey continued the order.
He will hear arguments from the man for a permanent suppression order in the near future.
During the first trial - which could not be reported until last week due to blanket suppression orders - Judge Mabey heard from about 130 witnesses including victims, complainants and their friends and family.
Crown prosecutor Andrew McRae said over a number of years the men “targeted” women at the bar to satisfy their “fixation” with sex.
The women said they were drugged and raped or violated by the men.
The main offenders initially denied all of the charges - but a week into the trial one of them pleaded guilty to 21 charges of sexually assaulting women.
The rest of the charges were defended but Judge Mabey found the two men guilty on a total of 68 charges.
During the trial, harrowing evidence was given by the women who were violated and traumatised by the men.
Their stories are strikingly similar. They went to the bar. They bought or accepted a drink.
The rest of their night is a blur.
Some made it home untouched - albeit “out of it” or unwell.
Some ended up in the bar toilets or at a nearby venue, sexually assaulted as they ebbed in and out of consciousness, powerless to control their actions, their bodies and their voice.
Their memories of the night came in fits, starts, flashbacks - horrifying snippets of a night gone terribly wrong.
They recalled being groped, grabbed, slapped. Their hair being pulled. Their clothes being removed. Being dragged, pinned, trapped.
They recalled violation by one or more of the men - things being done to their bodies that they could not control or stop.
One by one they sat in the dock and gave evidence for the Crown, then faced the often gruelling and graphic cross-examination by the defence.
Their memories of the night were limited but they were all adamant - staunchly so - of one thing.
“I did not consent.”
“I consented to nothing.”
They continued: “We can’t walk, we can’t talk. That is not consent.”
“I definitely wasn’t in a position to consent, there’s no way.”
The women went further:’
“I know it was a sexual assault, no one has the right to try to have sex with us while we are passing out.”
“He was so strong and I couldn’t move… I remember I must have been trying to get away and trying to walk and I couldn’t walk.”
“I was trying to push him off. I just remember my body was feeling really weak and it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to.”
“I was trying to get out.”
Judge Mabey also heard hours of evidence about various chat groups the men participated in - sharing their sexual escapades in explicit detail, their lurid comments and judgments on women and their bodies, plans of how they would achieve their next conquest.
They joked about rape, they joked about roofies - benzodiazepines are often used in drug-facilitated sexual assaults - and they spent an inordinate amount of time graphically outlining their seemingly never-ending sexual desires.
The younger of the men joked about drugging his then-partner. They discussed - at length and intimately - women they knew; bar patrons.
There was video - 14 minutes of crude footage of a woman being raped and assaulted made up of 11 short snippets, which the court heard was recorded without her knowledge.
The Crown said the men were “fixated” with sex. They targeted “much younger” women for it and they had a clear “indifference to consent”.
Effectively, if they wanted a woman - they would do what they needed to get her.
“There were occasions where females rejected unwanted sexual advances from the defendants after being given free drugs and or alcohol. These females were significantly younger than the defendants and were not sexually interested,” prosecutor McRae said.
“Further, [the men worked to] facilitate the administration of the alcoholic drinks, events with stupefying substance. It’s alleged that this was to encourage the atmosphere; to lower the resistance to the advances.”
For three years the “predators” used the bar as a hunting ground, using its toilet cubicles to offend - or leading their prey to another site with the promise of free drinks or recreational drugs and doing the unthinkable to them.
But on July 16, 2018, two brave women - one who had turned 18 just days earlier - went to police and started talking.
Operation Sinatra, led by Detective Inspector Scott Anderson, was born and the complaints about the bar and the men accused by the first two victims started to flow.
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you’ve ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone contact the
Safe to Talk confidential crisis helpline on:
Alternatively, contact your local police station.
If you have been abused, remember it’s not your fault.