The Mama Hooch rapists’ High Court appeal has been heard in Christchurch, almost two years after they were jailed.
At the one-day hearing yesterday, their defence team called for a retrial, claiming the way their six-week judge-alone trial was conducted led to a miscarriage of justice.
The Jaz brothers were convicted on 68 of the combined 113 charges they faced, for stupefying and subjecting 17 young women to sex attacks. Danny Jaz was sentenced to 16 and a half years in prison while his brother, Roberto, was jailed for 17 years.
The brothers are both appealing their convictions and sentences for heinous sex crimes the trial judge described as predatory and prolific. They didn’t appear in court as their appeal was heard.
However, in court for the appeal were several survivors of the pair’s crimes. Sophie Brown spoke outside court, saying: “These are dangerous men. They have little remorse for what they’ve done.”
During the hearing, defence counsel Ron Mansfield KC told Justice Cameron Mander: “The appellants did not get a fair hearing in the lower court, and there was a significant miscarriage of justice. In effect, the judge simplistically ran roughshod over the defence cases in relation to each grouping of charges.”
He argued, at the conclusion of their six-week judge-alone trial, that Judge Mabey didn’t permit Crown or defence closing arguments to save time, ahead of a second trial of a fourth defendant.
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“This was literally weeks into a very long fixture and in and of itself establishes both a predetermination and bias in favour of the crown’s case against the defendants before he’s even had an opportunity to hear all of the crowns evidence let alone that defendants have the opportunity of making an election and calling evidence for him to consider,” Mansfield said.
He added: “The only answer to it, given its magnitude, is setting aside the verdicts and returning the matter to the District Court for a further trial,” Mansfield said.
The Crown, which gave a two-day opening at the start of the trial, agreed it would have been preferable to have closing arguments, but pointed out the defence accepted it at the time.
Crown prosecutor Charlotte Brook stated in her submission: “Despite the absence of closing addresses, with the combination of his questioning, his discussions with counsel and the 147 arguments that took place, he was indeed well aware of the defence to be run on all of the charges.”
Several victims sat in the back of the court with support people to listen to the appeal, while others watched online.
Survivor Sophie Brown was among them and said outside court they had a lot of anxious energy leading up to the hearing, but felt it was important to be there to show they care deeply about keeping the men behind bars.
“These are dangerous men. They have little remorse for what they’ve done. They’re appealing, which shows they think they shouldn’t have had the sentences they got, and they should be out,” Brown said.
Brown said of the possibility of a retrial: “While it’s a small chance, it is still quite anxiety-inducing, and the reason for that is it took six years for this to go to court.
“I don’t know if all the survivors would go through that again”.
Justice Mander has reserved his decision.
