How trio overturned buck’s party ‘gang rape’ convictions
It was the buck’s party gang rape trial that stunned a nation. One man’s testimony was central in a bombshell court ruling that could see all three men walk free.
Evidence of a key witness was wrongly undermined in the trial of a Sydney lawyer, his brother and best mate accused of gang raping women on a buck’s party, a court has ruled.
Groom Maurice Hawell, younger sibling Marius Hawell and close friend Andrew David were last year convicted of multiple sexual assault charges alleged to have been committed against three different women across two nights on a 2022 trip to Newcastle.
Each woman, two aged 18 and one 19, gave evidence before the NSW District Court of being sexually assaulted in dark bedrooms at a Parry St apartment by multiple men.
The Hawells and Mr David, who were jailed for between nine and 14 years, maintained their innocence, and on Monday, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal quashed their convictions.
Marius, 24, was acquitted of all six charges he faced and will walk free after a panel of judges found the jury’s verdicts delivered in July 2024 were “unreasonable”.
The youngest of the bucks crew, Marius, had argued he was not present during any of the alleged sexual attacks and was facing at least five years and five months in prison.
“Subject to any other reason for his detention, of which the Court is unaware, Marius Hawell is entitled to immediate release,” the judgment states.
Maurice and Mr David’s appeals were also allowed, with retrials ordered for the 11 and 10 charges they face, respectively.
The duo, both 31, maintained that all of the sexual acts they participated in with the three women on the nights of February 25 and 26, 2022, were consensual.
Among their grounds of appeal was that the trial miscarried “as a result of the unreliable direction given in respect of the evidence of Matthew Anoih” – one of the party attendees.
According to the judgment of the appeals court, Mr Anoih gave evidence in the trial of having consensual sex with one of the complainants, Ms A, at the Airbnb booked for the party, and of later being in a nearby room while group sex occurred.
Taking the stand, Maurice Hawell claimed Mr Anoih was in the room during a consensual orgy also including Mr David and two women – Ms A and Ms B.
He claimed to have gone into the room where Mr Anoih and Ms A were and asked if they wanted “to have a foursome orgy”.
“I said that I’m good at having sex,” he said.
Mr Anoih gave evidence in the trial that he denied being involved in any group sex and left the room when Maurice and Ms B arrived.
He also gave evidence of seeing Marius in the lounge room while this group sex occurred, not in the bedroom as alleged by prosecutors.
Mr Anoih gave evidence that Ms A called out to him during the group sex so he came to the door to check on her: “So I went back and said ‘hey are you OK’ and she said ‘Yes I’m OK’.”
He is not accused of wrongdoing and has never been charged with any offences.
The Court of Appeal found Mr Anoih was “an important witness” who was “present in the apartment at relevant times”, and some of his evidence supported Mr Hawell’s version.
However, the trial judge granted the prosecution’s application that the jury should be warned about the reliability of Mr Anoih’s evidence after arguing he may have been concerned with “allegations of unlawful acts”.
Addressing the jury, Judge Gina O’Rourke said “there are many reasons why the evidence of such a person may be unreliable”, adding they “may probably be very common sense ones to you”.
The Court of Appeal found “singling out” Mr Anoih was unfair, finding he did not receive any benefit for the evidence he gave.
They noted that both the judge and Marius’ barrister described Mr Anoih as a “very lucky man” while addressing the jurors.
“Turning to the content of the warning, we do not accept that the direction was modified to any significant extent or in such a way that the unfairness to the accused who relied on his evidence in support of their case was reduced,” the court found.
“On the contrary, the warning was a strong one which suggested Mr Anoih was, on the prosecution case, ‘one of those four men involved in sexually assaulting the complainant’ and that it was therefore ‘incumbent’ on the jury to take into account a warning that ‘the evidence of such a witness may be unreliable’.”
Lawyers for Marius also challenged the reliability of a prosecution witness – a woman who was not one of the alleged victims – who claimed to have seen him enter a bedroom on the second night of the weekend.
The trio’s trial heard allegations Ms C was lured back to the unit by Maurice before he led her into a bedroom where he and Mr David had sex with her, according to the appeals court judgment.
Marius was accused of coming into the room and shining his phone torch to illuminate the scene.
The witness, ZG, told the court that a man she knew as “Male 6” went into the bedroom that night and that he was later among a group whom she left with.
CCTV footage showed, however, that Marius did not leave the unit with her as the group tried first to re-enter the nearby Cambridge Hotel before attending a local kebab shop.
Marius Hawell’s lawyers submitted that there was “plenty of time and opportunity” for the witness to understand who it was she spent time with after leaving the unit.
“It was objectively established through the time-stamped CCTV footage that ZG did not leave the apartment with Marius Hawell,” the court ruled.
“In fact she left with the man she had identified as male 3, being Andrew David.
“That gave rise to a realistic possibility that the person who ZG had seen entering the room was the same person who in fact left the apartment with ZG (ie Andrew David), and therefore not Marius Hawell.”
The panel of judges – consisting of Justice Stephen Free, Peter Hamill and Belinda Rigg – also upheld Maurice’s appeal on the grounds that the charges stemming from the Friday and Saturday night incidents should have been split into separate trials.
They found it was an “error of law in the admission of the evidence of the events of each night in support of proof of the allegations on the other night”.
