Married Fiji international rugby star jailed for nearly three years after sexually assaulting three teenagers
9 January 2024, 18:05
Rugby star Api Ratuniyarawa has been jailed two years and 10 months for sexually assaulting three teenage women, leaving one victim “bleeding” in a “painful” attack.
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The jury heard how the 37-year old predator assaulted his victims, all aged 19, in separate incidents from October 31 to November 1, during boozy nights out at bar Revolution in Cardiff city centre.
The Fiji international cornered his first victim while in the VIP section of the bar before forcing her hands down her trousers. Prosecuting, Heath Edwards KC added: "She was clearly resisting the defendant and trying to move away from him."
The robustly-built rugby player, who also played for the Barbarians, assaulted his second victim in the early hours of the morning, and touched the woman's breast and bottom, before bar staff kicked him out.
Footage showed that the second victim "tried to move away",but Ratuniyarawa was "significantly stronger than she was".
The next night, Ratuniyarawa was permitted to return to the bar, where he attacked a third woman, again in the VIP area, in a “painful” assault that left her “bleeding”.
Read more: Irish female rugby fan kidnapped and gang-raped after watching World Cup match in Bordeaux
Despite the woman’s pleas, telling him to stop “several times”. Ratuniyarawa “only stopped when others at the bar intervened".
Ratuniyarawa, from Kislingbury, Northamptonshire, admitted two counts of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault.
The married man and father-of-four denied two further charges of sexual assault relating to one of the three women.
He was sentenced to two years and 10 months at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday and will serve up to half in custody. He will serve the rest as community service.
The predator was caught assaulting the women on CCTV, with footage being shown to the court as evidence.
Reading her victim impact statement in court, one woman said that the “humiliating” attack was the “worst possible thing” Ratuniyarawa could have done to her.
She told the court that she was suffering from hair loss, difficulty eating and sleeping following the harrowing incident.
She added that her university studies has been impacted, and she has been left feeling "anxious and stressed" while she goes out.
The woman said: "He's ruined my life by what he's done, and I feel like I'm in my own personal hell from what he's done to me”.
She said: "I couldn't shower until I'd been examined and all I wanted to do was wash that man off me.
"This man had his whole career ahead of him, and such a high-profile person. He did this to me."
Mr Edwards said Ratuniyarawa “appears to have spent many of his nights socialising" in the week before a game.
The incidents happened days before Ratuniyarawa was set to play for the Barbarians in a friendly against Wales at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on 4 November 2023.
