Luiz Da Silva Neto guilty of spiking and sexually assaulting men

A "brazen" sex offender has been found guilty of spiking two men with an "aphrodisiac" drug before raping one and sexually assaulting the other.

Luiz Da Silva Neto, 36, drugged the men in separate events at a cottage in Middle Barton, Oxfordshire, last November and December.

Oxford Crown Court heard both victims woke up there naked unaware of what had happened to them.

Da Silva Neto, of Wandsworth, London, will be sentenced next Thursday.

Prosecutor Matthew Walsh said Da Silva Neto laced drinks with drug GHB or GHL, which he accepted using himself recreationally, or another similar substance.

Mr Walsh previously described them as an "aphrodisiac", which can have "euphoric and hallucinogenic effects".

Both are colourless, odourless and dissolve into liquids. They are absorbed by the body quickly and difficult to detect.

The first victim drank alcohol with Da Silva Neto at the property after travelling to do work there with him but "began to feel suddenly tired".

He fell asleep fully-clothed but awoke to find he was naked and his body "wouldn't work...as if he was paralysed" as he was sexually assaulted.

The next morning, he felt "broken in two" but on leaving saw an empty syringe and was "convinced he had been drugged".

Da Silva Neto was found by a jury to have administered a substance to stupefy the man to allow sexual activity and to have caused the man to engage in sexual activity without his consent.

The second victim had been at a London nightclub and married for a few weeks before Da Silva Neto drove him to Oxfordshire in a hire car.

He awoke naked "in a strange house" at about 10:00 the next day with "no idea what had gone on", before returning home to London "confused, distressed and upset".

He had been reported missing and "couldn't account for the hours between leaving the bar and waking up in the bed".

Da Silva Neto was found to have raped him, administered a substance to stupefy to allow sexual activity in the cottage and caused him to engage in sexual activity without his consent.

He was cleared of kidnapping him, kidnapping him with the intent of committing a sexual offence outside the nightclub and administering a substance to stupefy him to allow sexual activity in the hire car from London to Oxfordshire.

Da Silva Neto claimed all sexual contact he had with the men at the rental cottage, owned by his partner, was consensual and that he had never drugged anyone.

The first victim said he had been diagnosed with PTSD and he has been seeing a counsellor and psychologist since the attack.

He said: "This is the worst experience I've ever survived or lived through. I'm heterosexual, I'm Catholic, and… it's something I need to digest."

He said Da Silva Neto was a "danger to society… he should be in prison, that's where he belongs. You can't ruin someone's life."

Following the verdict, Det Insp James Holden-White of Thames Valley Police, said: "In his police interviews he was really brazen.

"He comes across as very footloose and fancy free, and he's given us an account along the lines that all of this was entirely consensual."

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