Drag queens suing Destiny for $2m claim church is withholding Facebook group chat messages

Drag queens suing Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church for defamation claim the church is withholding private messages to deny the rainbow performers their day in court. 

Drag performers Sunita Torrance, Daniel Lockett and their company Haus of Flash Ltd filed a $2 million defamation action against the church in 2024 with allegations of breach of contract, conspiracy to injure, unlawful means conspiracy, and defamation in relation to their community library events. 

Last week, the drag collective’s lawyer tried to have the defence of Tamaki, Destiny Church and two of its members “struck out”, claiming that they weren’t providing the court with their communications. 

If the strike out is granted for those defendants, they will have no trial and will not be able to argue their case before the judge makes a decision. 

The drag collective has accused Tamaki and other church members of making defamatory statements, including that their library events were “grooming” and “targeting our innocent kids with their filth”. 

They have also made breach of contract allegations, claiming the Destiny Church campaign against their events caused the cancellation of some of their “Rainbow Library” shows. 

Lawyer Chris Griggs told the High Court at Auckland last Thursday that Tamaki and the church had not followed court orders to share its communications. 

The court heard that High Court judges had at least twice ordered Tamaki, Destiny Church and the other church member defendants to share their internal messages for the appropriate period. 

The “smoking gun”, Griggs said, was evidence before the court showing that Tamaki and other defendants were part of a Facebook Messenger group chat where the church leader had shared an ad for the drag queens’ Gisborne “Living Library” show. 

Neither Tamaki, the church nor its trustees had provided any record of this group chat, the court heard. 

Unless the defendants disclosed their “intra-party” communications, which Griggs said “we know” occurred through Facebook messenger, then it was impossible for his clients to have a fair trial, if it came to that. 

Furthermore, he said Tamaki admitted publishing a press release in March 2024 saying that the library events were “grooming” kids and promising to take action to shut them down. 

It was “inherently implausible” that the church’s “mobilisation” could have been done without “a single” Facebook message, he said. 

Two other defendants, two lost phones 

His second accusation was that another two of the now seven defendants, church members Leighton Packer and Terangimarie Ngahuka, were lying to the court by saying the phones they were using at the time of the alleged defamation were broken or lost. 

The court heard both Packer and Ngahuka initially told the court via affidavits that the phones they were using at the time were broken and unusable. 

Then, in later affidavits, the women said they were mistaken, and had lost their phones when they both, separately, moved house. 

“That strains credibility beyond breaking point,” Griggs commented. 

Griggs noted that the first time the women were asked to provide “discovery” to the court, they submitted only one document: a copy of the King James Bible. 

However, Umar Kuddus, representing the two church members, said Griggs referring to the women’s lost phones account as “false” was improper, unethical and an “unproved allegation of perjury”. 

Daniel Lockett as Erika Flash (left) and Sunita Torrance as Coco with Hastings district councillor Wendy Schollum at a Rainbow Storytime event in Hastings. Photo / Supplied 

Tamaki and Destiny Church lawyer Scott McColgan explained that the controversial church leader had only one relevant electronic device at the time, his iPhone, and had followed court orders by searching the phone for the appropriate “key words”. 

The “key words” were set out by McColgan himself, but the lawyer said he had no idea why phone searches by Tamaki and his trustees didn’t pull up the group chat. 

McColgan said his clients hadn’t “wilfully failed to comply” but rather done their best to follow the court’s order. 

Now that his clients understood what specifically was being asked of them, McColgan said they could “drill down” into why the right documents weren’t found as opposed to the court going the “extreme step” of striking out the defence. 

“They are God-fearing Christian people, so when they put their hand on the Bible, there should be some recognition of that.” 

Sunita Torrance with lawyer Chris Griggs at the High Court in Auckland in 2024. Photo / Sylvie Whinray 

Kuddus said the drag performers and Griggs had converted their suspicions about his clients’ “inconsistencies” into the idea that a fair trial was not possible. 

He said Griggs had expected more messages to exist showing the church’s “mobilisation” against the drag queens and wrongly assumed that Packer and Ngahuka must have destroyed their phones. 

“Expectation is not clear evidence.” 

His junior lawyer, Nicholas Johnson, said both women had made concerted efforts to retrieve the phone’s data. 

Their perceived “inconsistencies”, Johnson said, could be explored at trial, where a fair hearing was still possible, and didn’t require the “extreme response” of dismissing the case. 

Throughout the hearing, Justice Liz Gellert reminded the lawyers that Facebook Messenger could be accessed from multiple devices. 

She said she had an inkling that at least Griggs and McColgan would be able to come to some sort of agreement regarding phone searches, and reserved her decision. 

‘Sick pedo leave the children alone’ 

Court documents show that another defendant in this case, church member Hohepa Haeata, elected not to give a defence, and was found to have defamed the drag queens. 

Justice David Johnstone’s November judgment said Torrance made a Facebook post in March 2024 explaining why Rainbow Storytime wasn’t inappropriate for children. 

An account in Haeata’s name left the comment “Sick pedo leave the children alone you wierdos (sic)” and on a Rotorua Library post about the event he commented “We will shut this sick event down you pedos”, the judgment said. 

In another comments section, Haeata called Torrance a “demon”. 

Justice Johnstone said the comments were “obviously” defamatory because they would lower the drag queens’ perception as “right-thinking members of society”. 

“The accusation of paedophilia is intrinsically a grave and [where inaccurate] cruel allegation,” his judgment said. 

He ordered the man to pay a total of $40,000 in damages to Haus of Flash, Torrance and Lockett. 

Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki leads a march down Queen St in central Auckland, in July 2025. Photo / Alex Burton. 

After its anti-Covid-19-vaccine and anti-LGBTQIA+ protests, Destiny Church is no stranger to the court. 

Tamaki’s grandson-in-law, Ford O’Connor, pleaded guilty to vandalising the Karangahape Rd rainbow crossing in 2024. 

A crowd made up of the church’s Man Up and Legacy groups stormed a drag library event in West Auckland in February 2025. 

Some of the about 30 toddlers, young children and adults at the event said they had to be barricaded inside the library room to avoid the Destiny protesters. 

And an Upper Hutt drag king story time was cancelled in 2024 after opposition from Destiny Church. 

Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.