A top rugby player has been jailed for sex attacks on three teenagers in a nightclub during boozy nights out with his teammates.
Fiji international Api Ratuniyarawa, 37, had been drinking with fellow rugby players three nights in a row ahead of the Barbarians game against Wales when he groped his victims, according to Mail Online.
The former London Irish forward was charged just hours before he was due to play in front of 70,000 people at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
Cardiff Crown Court heard he had been downing drinks with fellow international stars before he sexually assaulted three young women in the Revolution nightclub in the Welsh capital.
The victims, who did not know each other, all made complaints to the police regarding the attacks in the Vodka Revolution bar opposite Cardiff Castle.
The court was shown three CCTV clips of each assault inside the Revolution nightclub by prosecutor Heath Edwards.
Mr. Edwards said Ratuniyarawa had spent a week in Wales to prepare for the game but, ‘appears to have spent many of his nights socialising’.
In the first clip, Mr Edwards said the first victim ‘was clearly resisting the defendant and trying to move away from him’ as he tried to kiss her whilst dancing.
The second clip, from the following night, showed Ratuniyarawa ‘clearly intoxicated’ as he groped another victim.
A third clip shows him picking up another victim onto his lap before he touches her sexually.
The court heard how the three separate attacks happened on three different evenings at the bar to three 19-year-old women.
One victim told the court how Ratuniyarawa carried out the ‘shocking’ and ‘very painful’ assault.
She said: ‘I’m certainly not the same person I was before the attack.’ ‘I struggle to think it was OK to do this to a 19-year-old girl.’
She said the star had ‘ruined my life by what he’s done’ and that she was in her ‘own personal hell.’
Another victim said Ratuniyarawa had taken away her ‘identity, self-worth and confidence’ and impacted her ability to be ‘intimate’ with romantic partners.
She said she took comfort in the fact that she is ‘not alone in this’. She added: ‘I hope they are getting the help they need.’
The third victim said the impact of the attack had led her to leave her job and have suicidal thoughts.
She said: ‘I get emotional when I think about the event. I haven’t returned to the place until recently, that took a lot of courage and trauma.’
The father-of-four admitted two charges of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault.
Ruth Smith, defending, said that Ratuniyarawa is ‘genuinely remorseful’ and ‘deeply ashamed’ of his actions.
‘He is entirely responsible for the events that unfolded’ and the ‘blame and guilt’ lies with him,
She added. ‘He has not only let himself down and his family, but also his country, this is a burden for which he will bear.’
Judge, Recorder of Cardiff Tracey Lloyd-Clarke told him that ‘for all three offences I know you stopped because others intervened.’
She added: ‘I accept the remorse and shame you feel are genuine.’
Ratuniyarawa, of Kislingbury, Northampton, was jailed for two years and 10 months.
A three-year restraining order was also granted to one of the complainants.
