A COCAINE-sniffing nightclub boss who tricked a woman into going into a private room and tried to ply her with the drug in a bid to have sex with her has been jailed.
Darren Pinches, described by the prosecution at Warwick Crown Court as ‘a powerful man’ with businesses in Worcester and Birmingham, had denied offering to supply cocaine to the woman.
He also pleaded not guilty to possessing a bag of cocaine which he tried to wash down the sink at his home when he was arrested.
Following a four-week trial, the jury found him guilty of both charges, one of them by a majority verdict – but cleared him of further allegations in relation to two other women.
Pinches of Bromyard Road, was jailed for 21 months for offering to supply cocaine to the woman at one of his businesses, Browns at the Quay, with a concurrent four-month term for possessing cocaine.
The court heard the woman described burly Pinches as ‘a raving animal’ and likened him to Hannibal Lecter because of the way he sucked air between his teeth.
The jury had heard when she had turned up at Browns in September 2015, Pinches, who had known her as a customer for many years, began sending glasses of wine over to her.
Unknown to him, the woman gave them to a friend because she was driving that night, prosecutor Ben Aina QC told the jury.
Frustrated to find she had then left, Pinches dispatched a member of staff to the bar she had gone to with a message he had something to speak to her about.
Sentencing Pinches, who also owns Bushwackers nightclub, Judge Anthony Potter told him: “You did that with a view to deliberately isolating her from the couple she was associating with.
“Once there, she did not for a moment think anything unpleasant was going to happen to her. She went with you trusting your behaviour would be appropriate.”
Shortly after their conversation began, Pinches instructed a member of staff to bring cocaine, which he cut into five lines.
Pinches then offered the lines of cocaine to the woman, repeatedly encouraging her to take it despite her indications she was not interested.
“Your whole demeanour was transformed and you began to behave in a manner she had never expected,” Judge Potter said.
“You became aggressive. She described it as like you turning into a Hannibal Lecter figure.
“You made a number of expletive-laden demands towards her and announced the plan to have sex with her and you swept items off the desk and demanded she get undressed and get on the desk.”
“She told the police she had never been so scared in her life. She plainly thought she was about to be the victim of forced sexual intercourse.”
“Fortunately with ‘great presence of mind’ the woman made an excuse she needed to go to the toilet and made her escape through a fire exit.”
The judge accepted the cocaine had been given Pinches by a member of his security staff who had seized it but was satisfied Pinches had decided to keep it for himself.
Before sentencing, his barrister Michael Burrows QC argued for a community penalty and said: “It’s important to bear in mind what he’s been convicted of, possessing a small amount of cocaine and the offer to supply cocaine.
“On any of the facts it was at the lowest level on a social and non-commercial. The jury’s finding on the offer to supply does not mean they were sure of any other matter alleged.”
Of the possession offence, Mr Burrows said: “His actions in trying to dispose of it were down to panic.”
Mr Burrows said the stress of the case had affected Pinches, his family and his businesses which provided a livelihood for many other people for whom he felt responsible.
But Judge Potter told Pinches: “This is not a case where you have expressed any remorse for your offending and you have continued to deny the offences. It would not be consistent with my public duty were I to suspend the sentence.”
Pinches was cleared of charges of giving cocaine to a young woman in an office at Bushwackers in the early hours of New Year’s Day last year with intent to enable him to engage in sexual activity and of sexually assaulting her and a further charge of supplying cocaine to another woman at Bushwackers.
