Former international rugby player acquitted of motel rape

A jury needed only a day to find a former international rugby player not guilty of raping a woman in the company of another man at a Canberra motel.

On Wednesday, jurors acquitted Paula Fala Kata, 35, of sexual intercourse without consent in company and sexual intercourse without consent, following a six-day ACT Supreme Court trial.

His partner, who sat in the public gallery throughout proceedings, wiped away tears after the verdicts were delivered.

Mr Kata previously represented Tonga in rugby union.

According to an ESPN player profile, the man played four matches for the Polynesian nation between 2009 and 2010.

The two men were accused of “acting together” and raping the woman at Lyneham Motor Inn in the early hours of April 3, 2022, after she had fallen asleep.

Parties agreed on numerous aspects of the morning in question, including that Mr Kata and the victim met and “hooked up” at Fiction nightclub in Civic before returning to the motel and having consensual sex.

Jurors were shown CCTV of Mr Kata and the woman kissing, dancing and drinking together at the nightclub, and told how the pair came home with two friends.

Giving evidence through an interpreter last week, the man said he only approached the woman at the nightclub because she made “eye contact” with him and told him to come over with her “body language”.

“You’re trying to downplay your interest in [the woman] when you first met her,” prosecutor Melanie O’Connell said during cross examination.

“No, ma’am,” Mr Kata responded.

“She was still too annoying to me and I knew if I didn’t have sex with her she will keep urging me, annoying me.”

Ms O’Connell said Mr Kata was attempting to paint the woman as the “sexual aggressor”.

“I made an oath on th