The three words a Mama Hooch drugging survivor warned police never to use
Monday, 15 December 2025
In a closed-door police classroom, a Mama Hooch survivor stood before two dozen detectives and explained how a single question can break a victim’s trust. Her message was blunt: how police show up in those first moments can shape a survivor’s entire future. Amelia Wade was there.
There are three words Mama Hooch drugging survivor Sophie Brown says police should never say to a sexual assault victim: “Are you sure?”
It’s a small phrase loaded with doubt, she said. In a room of senior detectives at the Police College in Porirua, Brown told them it was enough to make someone shut down forever.
“Communicate like the job depends on it, because sometimes their life does.”
Brown was one of the 18 women who were sexually assaulted by Christchurch brothers Danny and Roberto Jaz, at the bar, Mama Hooch, and neighbouring restaurant, Venuti, between 2015 and 2018.
In 2023, the brothers were convicted on nearly 70 charges relating to the rape, drugging, drink-spiking, stupefying and filming of women in their teens and early 20s. They are appealing their convictions and sentences.
Now 27, Brown was invited to give a survivor’s view to help train senior detectives on a week-long advanced sexual assault course, which The Post was granted exclusive access to.
“You’re not always going to get a guilty verdict, that’s just the way that it works,” she told them.
“But the steps that you take in the process, and how you show up to that victim, can drastically change how they proceed with their life and who they show up as in life.”
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When it happened to Brown, she was 19, and like most university students, enjoyed going out. Mama Hooch was the place to be on Friday nights, even though everyone knew it was a “bit dodgy”, she said.
“If you were lucky enough to have met the owners … you got to skip the line, you got free drinks. When you’re 19 and dirt poor, that’s a great time.”
It was October 17, 2017 when she says Danny Jaz drugged her.
“I specifically remember this one time that he went behind the bar and he pulled a bottle out that wasn't on the shelf behind him.”
The next morning she woke up feeling “really, really weird” and confused. Scrolling back through her messages, she found one from her flatmate, furious that Brown had woken her by banging on the window because she didn’t have her keys.
Brown rang a friend to ask: “What the hell happened last night?”
The friend told her that she’d said Danny Jaz had sexually assaulted her.
Distressed, she spoke to her flatmates and friends and decided to go to the police station where she says she had a “really positive” first reporting experience.
“I just remember apologising, because I felt like I was drunk, drugged, whatever it was,” she told the class.
“It was just the weirdest experience to be there and at a police station, but to be under the influence of something. But everyone was really kind. Everyone was lovely. Everyone listened intently and took it very seriously.”
Police later confirmed they had found traces of ketamine, and an antihistamine which induces drowsiness, in her body.
Falling through the gaps
After reporting, she was told that police would be in touch and she spent the next few weeks feeling lost, isolated and struggling to sleep. She drank “probably a bit too much” to get out of her head.
“I understand that now that going deep into survival mode, your brain works very differently when it thinks it's under immense pressure and stress and threat all the time.”
She says she doesn’t remember being clearly offered ongoing support.
“It’s little things like that that I wish were more than just ‘we’re here if you need’ or ‘here’s the information if you need it’,” she said.
“It should be: ‘Here is the information and we will keep reminding you of this information so when you are ready, you know these things exist’.”
It took her years before she decided to go into therapy and she found a counsellor with experience in law and the courts. She helped Brown prepare to testify.
But it wasn’t until last year - after having already spent up to $10,000 of her own money on therapy - that she found out as a victim of sexual harm she was eligible for ACC-funded counselling.
She says she doesn’t remember being offered support.
After her session, several detectives told The Post that Brown’s account was a reminder that one quiet conversation about support is rarely enough - particularly when someone is in shock.
After going to the police, Brown had a body scan but no DNA was found. Officers explained that would make her case harder to prosecute.
She suspected they already had concerns about Mama Hooch because of how seriously they took her complaint.
Later, she saw a police press release asking for anyone with information about Mama Hooch to come forward. She realised she was part of a wider investigation.
Then came the call from Detective Helen Mahon-Stroud.
“She asked me if I was sitting down,” Brown said. “And she was like, ‘We’re going to trial.’ I was just so happy.”
But it would be five years before the case reached court - delays that were made worse by Covid.
In that time, Brown tried to “slip back into life like nothing had really happened”. Apart from occasional calls from Mahon-Stroud - who Brown describes as “amazing” - she didn’t have anyone guiding her through recovery.
Brown said while she knew police’s job was to investigate and convict, there was a way that they could work that made people feel cared for.
She suggested setting monthly reminders to have a positive check-in with survivors, even if there was no update, just to see how they were doing and to remind them what support was there.
“No communication can sometimes feel like you’ve been abandoned or you’re an afterthought or you’re not the centre of the situation - but there wouldn’t be a case if survivors don’t actually come forward and report.”
She also asked detectives to think about how they passed on information: details can be put in a PDF attached to an email so victims could open and read it when they were ready and in the right mindset.
“I know there’s a fine balance, and you don’t want to retraumatise people, but if they’ve just been through it, they are already going through it, I can tell you that much for free.”
‘Do the damn test’
Brown has waived her name suppression and now speaks publicly about her experience. She wants to counter the narrative that police can never be trusted, because her reporting experience “wasn’t perfect, but it was largely good”.
She also acts as a go-between, connecting other survivors with officers she trusts and is an ambassador for the soon-to-be-launched reporting platform, Tika.
Since going public, she says “hundreds” of women have contacted her. Some have reported their assaults; a “staggering” number have not.
She shared some of their stories with the class.
One woman said the receptionist at a police station told her: “I know him, he wouldn’t do that.”
Another said the officer investigating her complaint added her on Snapchat on a Saturday night.
Another reported being drugged but wasn’t tested.
“I don’t know what the process is, but do the damn test,” Brown told the detectives.
“Sometimes it’s not a conviction you’re aiming for, but it’s actually giving that person peace of mind… so you at least know if you were or you weren’t drugged.”
After the session, one detective approached Brown to explain that the common date-rape drug GHB leaves the system quickly, which is one reason tests don’t always happen.
Brown acknowledged practical limits and the fact that many in the room were not the officers who’d made those calls. But she said they needed to understand how it felt from the other side.
Words, she said, are signals. Survivors scrutinise every expression, every shrug, every sigh because they don’t want to be a burden.
Eye-rolling, slumped posture, bored or distracted body language can all read like you don’t care.
And the question “are you sure?” was dismissive and non-believing, she said.
“Basically, if you’re a survivor you’re already feeling shameful for allowing yourself to be assaulted,” she said.
“And then, to actually do the brave thing and tell someone, those three words are the way that they’re not going to continue speaking with you.”
Some of the issues survivors raised with her were beyond the control of the detectives in the room - but they were something to be conscious of.
A long road to trial
The Mama Hooch case became one of the largest of its kind in New Zealand. In 2023, after a 13-week trial, Danny and Roberto Jaz were convicted on almost 70 convictions between them for sexual violation, drink spiking, stupefying and making an intimate visual recording.
They were jailed for 16 and a half and 17 years with non-parole periods of half their sentences.
Before the trial, Danny Jaz pleaded guilty to Brown’s assault so she didn’t testify, but she read a victim impact statement.
Brown says the delay meant that, by the time she had to speak in court, she was in a stronger place. It meant she could take the stand as a confident 25-year-old.
The survivors have also stayed in close contact. They have a WhatsApp group called the “survivor sisters”, where they check in on each other.
Brown tries to share her experience as much as she can because she had a positive reporting experience and she wants to counter any negative narratives that police can’t be trusted.
At the same time, she does not sugar-coat the failures she’s heard about so they can be learned from.
“Take it or leave it. Those are my thoughts. That’s my experience.”
Where to get help for sexual violence:
Rape Prevention Education click here for local sexual assault support services.
Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843 (females only)
Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, click to find out more (males only)
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.