Rugby player Api Ratuniyarawa jailed for sexually assaulting three teenagers

Rugby player Api Ratuniyarawa has been jailed for nearly three years after admitting sexually assaulting three teenagers in a bar days before he was due to play for the Barbarians.

The 37-year-old Fiji international had been in Cardiff ahead of the game against Wales last autumn when he attacked the three young women inside the VIP area of the city centre Revolution bar.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Ratuniyarawa went to the bar on three consecutive nights with his team-mates and on each occasion while drunk assaulted a victim.

Heath Edwards, prosecuting, told the court: “On November 4 the Barbarians played Wales at the Principality Stadium.

“The defendant had been selected to play for the Barbarians and together with the rest of his team-mates had attended Cardiff in the week before the game to attend media commitments and training for the fixture.

“The defendant appears to have spent many of his nights socialising in Cardiff in advance of the game.

“The defendant has repeatedly attended the Revolution bar on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights of the week in run-up to the fixture.

“On each of those occasions, of those visits, he sexually assaulted a different lady in the VIP area of the bar.”

At a previous hearing Ratuniyarawa pleaded guilty to two charges of assault by penetration and one charge of sexual assault.

Ratuniyarawa, of The Orchard, Kislingbury, Northamptonshire, denied two further charges of sexual assault relating to one of the three women and those charges were ordered to lie on file.

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, The Recorder of Cardiff, jailed Ratuniyarawa for two years and 10 months.

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and given a three-year restraining order against one of his