KEY POINTS:
It's a little after midnight, midweek. Three fairly sober young women, one of them a Herald journalist, stand outside The Whiskey bar on Ponsonby Road.
A group of dishevelled men approach and ogle them. The men are clearly intoxicated. They're stumbling around and struggling to focus.
They wear sandals, shorts and old T-shirts and carry oversized sports bags. They appear to be fresh from an extended drinking session at a local sports club.
Despite their casual clothes and inebriated state, they walk straight into The Whiskey and are served.
It's midweek and there is no bouncer. Instead, a friendly young woman runs the bar while a male colleague does the grunt work, restocking the bar and moving tables and chairs.
Both are amicable and obliging, greeting customers like old friends.
Inside the bar, an eclectic cluster of patrons has gathered. Two middle-aged men with bald heads and round bellies lean on the bar drinking Heineken.
Next to them sits a lone punter, sipping red wine and sketching faces on a large artist's notepad.
In a booth behind them, a couple sip cocktails and steal kisses - he is not a day under 40; she is not a day over 25.
Other drinkers dot the bar; men outnumber women five to one. A bartender says the place comes alive from 11pm most nights as people make their way down the restaurants and drinking strip, often ending up here.
As other establishments close their doors for the evening, The Whiskey fills up with those not ready to call it a night, staying open until the wee small hours.
The young women try to chat to each other but it becomes impossible as streams of men approach, insisting they talk, dance or have another drink.
"Thank you, but I'm not interested" or "please leave us alone" fails to register with many of the men who seem to take the refusals as a challenge.
It's hard enough to shake this sort of attention sober, says one of the women. After 15 drinks, she thinks it would be downright impossible.
The prime location and late licence means all sorts will end up at The Whiskey, especially on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
The Whiskey is no different to bars all over town, which feature private rooms and discreet nooks. They're common in many of Auckland's finer drinking establishments. Built to encourage a sense of exclusivity, they also allow for easy intimacy. Excessive drinking and casual encounters are no less common in the flash bars at the Viaduct.
We checked out The Whiskey, though, because it was where former rugby league star and community leader Tea Ropati ended up one night in June 2006 after an argument with his wife.
He'd had a few beers at Sponge Bar along the road and had wandered down to The Whiskey. He hooked up with a woman in her 30s, who by her own admission was drunk and had earlier in the night snorted a line of cocaine.
At one stage they were caught on video in the back room.
The pair eventually left and the woman would later claim that Ropati had raped her. She was so drunk she could not recall the incident but said she awoke because she was in pain.
Ropati denied any sex had taken place. In court, the prosecution said medical evidence showed she had suffered blunt force trauma to her genitals and detailed anal injuries.
Ropati's lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, suggested she had consented to everything that had happened that night and there was no way Ropati could have known otherwise.
The claimant said that if Ropati had been "an honourable man" he would have put her in a taxi home.
On Thursday, a jury of five women and seven men cleared Ropati on all counts against him - attempted sexual violation, sexual violation, rape and sodomy.
Tea Ropati is part of the Ropati clan, a family of strapping brothers known for their strength and flair on the rugby league field; a family of sporting heroes who are especially respected in home town Otahuhu where they grew up in a tough neighbourhood and made good.
Three of the brothers have played for the Kiwis, including Tea. He won player of the year in the Warriors first year and was a British Man of Steel in the 1990s.
He has been touted as a community leader, working with another former Kiwi and Warriors player, Stacey Jones, helping at-risk youth in South Auckland.
He has also been involved in beautifying Manukau and, until his arrest last year, was the director and public face of the Koru Trust 2002, a youth mentoring project.
His large family is nothing if not tight-knit, many turning out daily to support him. Brother John was counsel assisting Gotlieb, and consistently in the back row of the public gallery was brother Peter Ropati, also a former league player and now a commentator with Sky, a man usually with an amiable manner.
On Thursday, after the last not-guilty charge was read and the room of family and supporters erupted, it became clear Peter Ropati had been barely keeping his anger in check.
His family's stellar name and brother's reputation had been dragged through the courts.
He shouted in the courtroom: "Now give us justice and name her," he began, before getting up and continuing to yell that the case should never have got to trial.
Pandemonium ensued outside as he carried on shouting, this time at the media.
Media were cleared from near the family by a security guard who explained it was for their own safety.
A few minutes later, in a statement read by Gotlieb, Tea Ropati said he never doubted he would be found innocent of all the charges, saying he had been honest and upfront with everyone concerned. But he acknowledged he had ongoing issues to address regarding alcohol.
(Yesterday, Ropati admitted a charge of drink driving, arising from an incident on New Year's Day. He recorded a blood-alcohol level of 821, more than two times the legal limit. He was disqualified from driving for six months from midnight tonight and fined $620 and $130 court costs.)
On Thursday, after his acquittal on the sex charges, Ropati acknowledged failing people and said he wanted to renew his commitment to making a difference in the community.
Gotlieb said afterwards Ropati had been stupid putting himself in the position he had, but did accept that he had an alcohol problem.
It was a pity the complainant did not accept that she had one, he said.
Gotlieb also claimed the police doctor had made more of the medical evidence than there really was.
"But look, at his age, married with a beautiful wife, what a bloody idiot. You know, just learn from that. That's why I said about the alcohol, he would not have got himself in that situation if he had been sober."
Asked whether Ropati was still a man of honour, Gotlieb conceded his client had a bit of groundwork to make up and knew it.
"He's let everyone down, as I've said in that statement."
The complainant issued a brief statement, too, saying she was devastated by the verdict but had no regrets about coming forward.
In an interview in tomorrow's New Zealand Women's Weekly she says more: "To me, if this trial makes men think twice about women who are drunk, if it makes one person put a drunk woman in a taxi rather than letting her fend for herself, or even makes a woman think twice about getting drunk, then the ordeal has been worth it and I'm happy I went through with it.
"We need to look out for each other as human beings. I wish, more than anything, that I could have put myself in a taxi earlier that night."
She is no young groupie, she says.
"I'm a career woman in her 30s, from a good family, with self-respect and intelligence.
"I didn't even know who Tea Ropati was. I know I was flirting with him but I wasn't doing anything wrong."
She felt she had been treated "like a drink-driver who has created an accident that is all their own fault and people don't feel sorry for them because their injuries were due to their own drinking.
"But just being drunk isn't breaking the law. I simply went for a night out with my friends and made the mistake of drinking too much."
A close friend told Review the woman, who has name suppression, now doesn't go out much and hardly drinks. She doesn't feel safe and hasn't been ready for intimacy.
Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Beard, who came under attack by Gotlieb after the verdict for the police pursuing of the case, urged women not to be put off coming forward.
Just because a woman was drunk did not mean she was "fair game", he said. It didn't matter who was involved, if police believed they were justified in making an arrest, they would.
The case highlights wider issues about Auckland's late-night drinking culture. It is illegal to allow people to become intoxicated at bars and it is illegal to serve drunk people. But it goes on most nights of the week and there are often consequences for women.
For Kathryn McPhillips, clinical manager of the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation, the scenario is not new.
"We see it every weekend. Alcohol is the main ingredient."
She says last weekend seven women were referred to the service by police and the service dealt with two call-outs a day the previous week.
Those figures are bad enough, but McPhillips says only one in 10 women go to the police, so the figures have to be multiplied by 10.
That's around 70 possible rapes and sexual assaults a week in the greater Auckland area, not counting the south, which the service does not cover.
But rape is such a tricky area. Under the law, if a woman is not capable of giving consent to sexual intercourse, even if it is because she is too drunk, then by definition this is rape, says McPhillips.
But there often isn't independent evidence and only about 1 per cent of cases get to court.
"Because those cases never get tried, I don't think the general public realises that if someone can't give consent then it is by definition rape. They don't realise, they think 'oh, here's an opportunity'."
Being drunk doesn't matter, she says.
" ... none of that says 'yes you can stick your penis in my vagina or my anus or my mouth', it doesn't mean that at all."
Society still has a tendency to blame the drunk girl, she says.
McPhillips is a keen proponent of restorative justice, where conversations between young men and women who are misunderstanding each other could be held.
"They need to understand what goes on for each other so they actually get it because they're operating from two different scripts."
She describes a phenomenon the service sees regularly which she calls the "social predator rapist scenario" where young women go out drinking, men buy them drinks and befriend them, then when a woman trusts them they offer to take her home then rape her. Again, often there is little or no independent evidence and the case won't make it to court.
Women have to work out what personal responsibility is for them, McPhillips says. They need to figure out how to keep themselves safe - whether this is setting drinking limits, sticking with friends or going out with male friends they trust.
"Because the sad reality is that women without men are seen as potential targets by other men ... we don't think women realise they have to have a plan."
Dr Kim McGregor from Rape Crisis and Rape Prevention Education says the organisation teaches young people to be responsible about drinking because there are predators who specifically look for people under the influence of drink or drugs.
Drunk women getting raped comes to their attention often, she says, and women are still often blamed for being raped.
A recent Amnesty International report from the United Kingdom found 25 to 30 per cent of people blamed the woman if they were wearing a short skirt or if they had been drinking.
But while the woman is blamed for getting drunk, she says the man is not usually held responsible for how much he has been drinking, or for not ensuring the woman was willingly participating.
And, unlike the woman, the man is not required to be put on the stand and cross-examined.
The fact is, McGregor says, a woman is entitled to drink as much as a man without being raped.
"It always seems to be put on to the woman that she's supposed to keep the man in check and be holier than thou."
Rebecca Williams of Alcohol Healthwatch says she hopes the liquor authorities take note from this case.
Both parties were drunk and shouldn't have been on the premises, or should not have been allowed inside if they were showing signs of intoxication.
Serving them was breaking the law under the Sale of Liquor Act.
"It's more than host responsibility, it's the legal obligation under the act."
Bruce Robertson, chief executive of the Hospitality Association, says it is against the law to serve drunk people or intoxicated people on the premises, but it's not as simple as that.
"The issue is determining at what point they become intoxicated as opposed to being simply affected by alcohol and that is a fine line - it's one of the challenges the industry has to try and manage."
And the challenge is even bigger when other substances are involved.
"Just drinking, that's fine. If they go and have a snort of something else somewhere else, that can affect their level of intoxication in a hurry."
The industry is also concerned that while the bar gets all the blame, there seems to be no responsibility on the individual who is getting drunk.
This is why in submissions to the Sale of Liquor Act amendment bill due before Parliament, the association has included a call for being intoxicated in a public place to be made an offence.
"How are you actually going to stop binge drinking if the only people who have got any responsibility for it are licensees and their staff when only 30 per cent of alcohol is actually consumed on licensed premises?" Robertson says.
Police won't say if there will be consequences for The Whiskey, which didn't return calls for comment for this article by its deadline.
Sergeant Jason Loye, liquor licensing co-ordinator for Auckland West, said he was taking an interest in the information which had come out of the court case "but as far as where we go from here remains to be seen".
Duty managers are well aware of what the responsibilities are and can be fined up to $20,000. Powers also exist to remove or modify liquor licences or to shut down premises permanently, and this happens, Loye says.
In theory, in terms of the law, the days of going out in order to get pissed are gone. The reality is, it will continue to happen everywhere - and very real risks remain.
