Man admits drug-fuelled parties but says sex with colleague was not assault

A man accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a man in a cottage in an Oxfordshire village has told a court their relations were consensual.

Luiz Inacio Da Silva Neto denies drugging and sexually assaulting one man in Middle Barton last November.

He also denies drugging and kidnapping another man, before raping him at the same cottage in December 2021.

Taking the stand, Da Silva Neto, from London, described his drug-fuelled party lifestyle to jurors.

“I experimented a lot,” he said, with reference to his drug-taking activities.

The 35-year-old, who moved to the capital from Brazil in 2009, admitted having tried cocaine and mephedrone, and becoming a regular user of crystal meth and GBL, a liquid drug which metabolises into GHB - a substance which is often known as the ‘date rape drug.’

“Everyone does it, it’s very, very common,” he said of GBL, referring to the people he went clubbing with.

Da Silva Neto described his drug usage and partying spiralling over time.

“When I first started to go out I would do it like every weekend, then the weekend started to get a little longer.

“I would just go for five, six days on the go,” he said, describing going clubbing in London’s Soho and Vauxhall areas.

He said he would regularly go to drug-fuelled afterparties, often with other men in the gay community.

“If I was in a gay club I would get invited to go to someone’s house - it would be either people just doing drugs or sex parties.”

When asked about the night of the alleged assault, November 10 2021, he admitted doing crystal meth.

He said that he and the victim, whom he'd worked with five years, had driven from London to the cottage in Middle Barton after work one evening in order to do some DIY on the property.

The prosecution argue this is where the defendant drugged the victim with GBL, incapacitating him, before sexually assaulting him.

The defendant told the court that in the course of the evening, the men had started “talking about girls and sex”. This eventually led to sexual relations between the two men. 

When asked whether the alleged victim, who's in his 30s, had consented, the defendant, replied “Yes [...] he said yes.”

The trial, at Oxford Crown Court, is expected to continue until the end of the week.