A drug-rape case of stunning brutality and scale
For the women who testified in the trial of two Christchurch rapists, the immediate ordeal is over. The trauma may take a lifetime to address.
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, April 28 by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Fake Middlemore doctor jailed; Stuff announces paywalls for much of its news content; revenue minister David Parker talks to Bernard Hickey about this week’s bombshell IRD report. But first, 10 years on from Roast Busters, how much has really changed?
For survivors, a five-year journey to justice
Sexual offending is such a part of our daily reality that it can be easy to become inured to news stories about rape, abuse and sexual assault. But then a case lands that is so huge, the scale of the offending so horrific, that it’s impossible to look away. The trial and conviction of two Christchurch men for a slew of offences – including rape, sexual violation, stupefying and making intimate visual recordings without consent – is such a case. The men, who for three years stalked the now-closed inner city bar Mama Hooch looking for young women to drug and rape, have been convicted on 69 separate charges involving 17 victims. The case dates back to 2018, when two young women went to police the day after being assaulted by one of the men. “Their complaint led the police to start looking further,” reports Newshub’s Christchurch correspondent, Juliet Speedy. “A search of the police intelligence database between 2016 and 2019 disclosed 38 incidents across Canterbury, 24 of them coming from Mama Hooch.” The investigation, dubbed Operation Sinatra, would eventually see 127 charges laid; a total of 30 women made allegations.
‘You have to learn to live with that thread’
For the women who testified, the immediate ordeal is over. But Jo Bader, an Aviva sexual violence manager who has assisted survivors in the case, tells RNZ Checkpoint their experience of sexual assault will remain a “thread that’s woven into their lives. You have to learn to live with that thread.” During the case, the “men’s lawyers repeatedly questioned the women about their alcohol and drug use,” writes 1News’ Thomas Mead, in an excellent account of the long running investigation. “The questions would follow a familiar formula, all variations of the same thought: ‘How much did you have to drink that night?’” Bader says such questioning is a “very pointed way of making people feel like it’s their fault for having drunk so much”, noting also that “legally, you can’t actually consent if you’re intoxicated, anyway”. On The Spinoff, criminology professor Jan Jordan says the case “reminds us of how deep women’s blame and shame remains when it comes to rape, and how men continue to feel entitled to women’s bodies”. The convicted men may be vilified as “monsters”, “but we need to recognise their behaviour has come from somewhere, as an extension of patriarchal beliefs and attitudes.”
Why drink spiking is so hard to prove
The crime of stupefying – specifically, drink spiking – played a large role in the Christchurch case. Writes Speedy, the victims reported experiencing “memory loss, blackouts, vomiting, a weak and floppy body… feeling like being on anesthetic and displaying out-of-character behaviour such as rage.” The stupefying charges were hardest to make stick, as it was difficult to prove which of the men specifically spiked the drinks. On The Conversation, forensic scientist Lata Gautem says there are other reasons the crime can be hard to prove. “The substances associated with drink spiking cases are not always easy to notice – they dissolve quickly in drinks and do not have any smell or colour. By the time a victim reports a case, some drugs may have been cleared from the body, making drug detection difficult from blood or urine samples.”
10 years on, an echo of the Roast Busters scandal
The Christchurch men were part of a WhatsApp group where they planned attacks and shared sexually explicit material including a 14-minute rape video. There are similarities to the 2013 Roast Busters scandal, which centred on allegations a group of young Auckland men had intoxicated underage girls at parties to engage them in unlawful sexual acts, then boasted about their conquests online. No charges were laid at the time, but in 2022 two men admitted to historical sexual offences committed while they were in high school. In 2019, The Spinoff’s Alex Casey spoke to one of the survivors. “It wasn’t just a night I can forget,” ‘Laura’ told Casey. “I can’t take away my memory, I can’t take away the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me… I’m still living it.”
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Fake Middlemore doctor jailed
A man who posed as a doctor and saw dozens of hospital patients over the course of months has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Yuvaraj Krishnan’s defence lawyer told the court Krishnan had been described by a psychiatrist as “fluid with the truth” and his offending driven by a “bizarre compulsion to want to work as a doctor” and possible undiagnosed bipolar and dissociative identity disorders, the NZ Herald reports. Krishnan worked as a research fellow in respiratory medicine at Middlemore Hospital for six months and saw 81 patients, conducting chest examinations, prescribing medicines and making referrals. Eventually, “a fellow student from his Auckland University days recognised Krishnan’s name in a referral document and raised the alarm with the Medical Council.” Days after being stood down from Middlemore, he applied for a role as a dermatologist at NZ Skin Health in Howick using a fake CV.
Large portion of Stuff news content to be made subscriber-only
Stuff is to launch three new paywalled news sites, for its newspapers The (Dominion) Post, The Press and the Waikato Times. “The journalism produced for the three publications would largely only be accessible to subscribers, while Stuff.co.nz remained the live, lively, vibrant and addictive news site it is today, free to all users,” chief executive Sineoad Boucher said in a Stuff post announcing the new sites. Chief content officer Joanna Norris said Stuff and the masthead sites would complement each other, rather than one being a substitute for the other. The three publications will also get “fresh brand identities” from Saturday.
A message from Duncan Greive, senior writer, podcast host and founder of The Spinoff.
I founded The Spinoff to fill a hole in our media landscape – to create smart, original writing and content that looks at this country from a different angle. The only reason it exists today is because our members believe in us, and are willing to donate to keep our content free for all. Join us in making a difference to the local media landscape by becoming a member or making a new donation today.
How do we fix New Zealand's tax inequity?
An IRD investigation into the wealth of New Zealand's richest 311 families found they paid an effective tax rate of just 9.5%, less than a third the 30% effective rate being paid by single PAYE-taxpaying renter on $80,000 a year. This week on When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks to the report’s commissioner, revenue minister David Parker, to break down what the report says and discuss the fairness New Zealand's current tax system.
Click and collect
National says it will reinstate no-cause evictions, alongside scrapping a range of other tenancy regulations it argues have decreased rental supply and pushed up prices.
Two Covid-19 infection surveys announced by Ashley Bloomfield in July last year but not yet launched have been abandoned by the Ministry of Health, which says they are no longer needed.
More than 600 real estate salespeople left the industry in the year to March, as the housing slump continues to cut into commissions.
A last-minute bid to delay the Green Party's list ranking until after the inquiry into MP Elizabeth Kerekere's conduct has failed.
According to a NZ Herald “poll of polls” (paywalled) Te Pāti Māori will likely play kingmaker, with a series of electoral simulations finding 75.1% of the time, Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori got over the crucial 61-seat threshold.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
If you liked what you read today, share The Bulletin with friends, family and colleagues.
Chris Schulz ranks all of New Zealand's streaming services for his newsletter Rec Room. What is a congestion charge, exactly? Tommy de Silva explains. Hayden Donnell profiles Dean Kimpton, the man with the most impossible job in Auckland: leading Auckland Transport. Chris Hipkins has once again nixed the possibility of a capital gains tax to address inequality – and his budget is going to be "no frills" as well, reports Stewart Sowman-Lund.
Sporting snippets
NZ Rugby says it’s in a good financial position despite posting a loss of almost $50 million for the year to March. NZR says the loss is largely due to Covid recovery and a $21m “deliberate investment” in the women’s game.
England cricketer Stuart Broad says Australia's 4-0 series win over England in 2021-22 does not count as a real Ashes victory, arguing Covid-19 restrictions made it void.
In the NBA playoffs, the Miami Heat overcame a 16-point deficit in the 4th quarter to eliminate no 1 seed the Milwaukee Bucks in overtime.
It’s Friday, so….
Here’s Chris Vazquez, part of the Washington Post’s brilliant TikTok team, explaining the firing of Tucker Carlson in 43 seconds, with an assist from Barbra Streisand.
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The use of the word stunning in the headline of this article is both deeply disturbing and so very wrong. There is absolutely nothing stunning about this case. Words that come to mind are horrific, terrifying, evil, disgusting, and the list goes on - but most certainly NOT stunning.