{"id":22601,"date":"2025-02-06T19:15:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T19:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ugandan-rugby-international-jailed-for-rape\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T19:15:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T19:15:34","slug":"ugandan-rugby-international-jailed-for-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ugandan-rugby-international-jailed-for-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugandan rugby international jailed for rape"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"SouthSouth Wales Police<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Philip Pariyo was found guilty in December 2024 <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A Ugandan rugby player who claimed asylum in Wales has been jailed for four and a half years after raping a woman in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pariyo had repeatedly denied raping the woman, but was found guilty of the offence in December 2024.<\/p>\n

He had represented his country in Rugby Sevens in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow before disappearing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a letter addressed to Judge Celia Hughes, he said he was “genuinely sorry to those who suffered from my actions”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“No one should fight like their life depends on it for something as simple as consent.”<\/p>\n

Pariyo first came to the UK in 2014, when he was part of the Ugandan Rugby Sevens team for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

He was one of two players who disappeared after the Games<\/a>, and the following year it emerged he had moved to Cardiff. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

St Peter’s confirmed he hasn’t played for them for “at least nine years”. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MatthewMatthew Horwood<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Pariyo had represented his country at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow before disappearing.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The court heard that he first met the woman in 2019 at a funeral in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

He ignored the refusal, and raped her.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sentencing, Judge Celia Hughes called it an “appalling attack and violation of a woman you called a friend”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“You pleaded not guilty even though you admitted having sex in your text messages.<\/p>\n

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

Judge Celia Hughes also said the sentence would “adversely affect his asylum claim”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Wales Police Philip Pariyo was found guilty in December 2024 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22603,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22601\/revisions\/22603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}