IPTABLES rules occur BEFORE hosts.allow, so whitelisting his home IP in hosts.allow will NOT solve an IPTABLES problem.
Nothing in a default LAMP stack will auto-entry IP's to be blocked.
Fail2ban is more PITA then security - lose that COMPLETELY and see what happens.
Might get more responses if you actually post some of your config files (like IPTABLES rules, fail2ban config, etc).
_________________
Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the
crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.