A Ugandan rugby player who claimed asylum in Wales has been jailed for four and a half years after raping a woman in Cardiff.

Cardiff Crown Court heard how Philip Pariyo, 32, became close friends with the woman involved, before he attacked her in a flat in the city in June 2021.

Pariyo had repeatedly denied raping the woman, but was found guilty of the offence in December 2024.

He had represented his country in Rugby Sevens in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow before disappearing.

In a letter addressed to Judge Celia Hughes, he said he was “genuinely sorry to those who suffered from my actions”.

An impact statement written by the woman was read to the court, in which she described the long-term physical and mental impact the attack had had on her.

“No one in the world should go through what I did, fighting and begging for my life. It has left lasting impacts on me, and has felt like an open wound that I can never heal from.

“It’s made me feel dirty, numb and tainted. He invaded my body by force and branded me from within. He became an unwanted part of my body that I can’t get rid of.

“No one should fight like their life depends on it for something as simple as consent.”

Pariyo first came to the UK in 2014, when he was part of the Ugandan Rugby Sevens team for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

He was one of two players who disappeared after the Games, and the following year it emerged he had moved to Cardiff.

There he had claimed asylum and was playing for St Peter’s Rugby Club in Roath, before becoming a waste management worker for Cardiff Council.

St Peter’s confirmed he hasn’t played for them for “at least nine years”.

Defending, John Ryan said Pariyo had claimed asylum on the basis of being accused of being homosexual, and feared returning to Uganda, where it is illegal to be homosexual.

The court heard that he first met the woman in 2019 at a funeral in Cardiff.

After that the pair became friends, and in 2021 Pariyo and the woman stayed in the city with two other people – including Pariyo’s girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time.

Judge Celia Hughes said that on the night of the attack, Pariyo had “badgered” the woman for sex, who in turn refused.

He ignored the refusal, and raped her.

The court heard how the pair went to a chemist the next morning to buy the morning after pill, and Pariyo suggested buying condoms, implying he wanted to have sex with her later that day.

Sentencing, Judge Celia Hughes called it an “appalling attack and violation of a woman you called a friend”.

She said his not guilty plea was in the face of strong evidence against him, and led to the woman having to relive the ordeal in open court.

“Someone with your physical strength and who played at such a high level in your sport should act as a role model to others. But instead you manhandled this woman as entirely as you wished.

“You pleaded not guilty even though you admitted having sex in your text messages.

“She will never be the same strong confident woman she was before she came to Cardiff to see you, because of your sexual greed.”

Judge Celia Hughes also said the sentence would “adversely affect his asylum claim”.