Guilty of sex assault on boy

A GOLD Coast man convicted of raping a 16-year-old Brazilian student at gunpoint spent his first night behind bars last night after being found guilty.

Jason Haines, 53, shook his head after the jury of seven men and five women found him guilty of rape and sexual assault after four hours deliberation.

The rape occurred in 2007 but it took 10 years for police to match Haines to a DNA sample on the victim’s boxer shorts.

Haines mumbled “cowards” as the jury walked from the Southport District Court yesterday after a two-day trial.

During the trial the court was told how Haines was driving down the Gold Coast Hwy at Mermaid Waters when he picked up the young Brazilian student on December 13, 2007.

In closing, Crown prosecutor Stephanie Gallagher said the boy and Haines – a bald, obese man using a walker in court – were complete strangers.

She said he had no other motivation to make a complaint.

“Things happened to him – he reported it to police,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”

The student, now 28, flew to the Gold Coast from Portugal to give evidence at the trial.

The jury was told the boy was making his way home where he was staying with a Gold Coast family in the early hours of December 13, 2017.

“He was an intoxicated student in an unfamiliar country.”

Haines took the student to two public toilets and threatened him with a gun he had in a paper bag. He forced the boy to perform sex acts with him.

Police did not pick up Haines until May 2017. It was then his DNA was found to match a sample from the waistband of the boy’s boxer shorts.

The boy reported the attack to his homestay mother as soon as he got home that night.

The woman described him as “traumatised” and he was “shaking” and “spitting”.

She said the boy wanted to have a shower and clean his teeth. It was not until the next day the boy went to police after speaking with another friend.

Haines will be sentenced today after his bail was revoked last night.

Through the trial Haines claimed the sexual encounter was consensual. His barrister Jeff Hunter questioned whether the boy had got into that car and started thrusting his hips suggestively and asking if he wanted to “boom, boom”.

Ms Gallagher said the student responded, asking what “boom boom” meant.

Mr Hunter questioned if the pair would fit into the public toilet cubicle.