Api Ratuniyarawa: Barbarians player jailed for sexual assault

A Fijian rugby player has been jailed after sexually assaulting three women in a Cardiff city centre bar.

Api Ratuniyarawa, 37, admitted two counts of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault at Revolution between 31 October and 2 November 2023.

He was sentenced to two years and 10 months at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday.

Ratuniyarawa, of The Orchard, Kislingbury, Northamptonshire, will serve up to half in custody.

The rest will be served in the community.

The court heard the three attacks happened independently of each other, on three separate nights in the same bar.

All incidents were caught on CCTV, and none of the victims – who were all 19 – knew Ratuniyarawa or each other beforehand.

Heath Edwards, prosecuting, said that dad-of-four Ratuniyarawa had been in Cardiff during the week leading up to the game on 4 November, and “appears to have spent many of his nights socialising” with teammates.

In the early hours of Tuesday, 31 October, he assaulted his first victim in the VIP area of the bar, where he “cornered her [and] put his hands down her trousers”.

Mr Edwards added: “She was clearly resisting the defendant and trying to move away from him.”

The second victim was assaulted in the early hours of 2 November, where Mr Edwards said that Ratuniyarawa had touched the woman’s breast and bottom.

She had “tried to move away,” he said, but Ratuniyarawa was “significantly stronger than she was”.

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