Ropati Dominic Finau, 25, found guilty of raping teen in attack that only stopped when cat walked in
A heavy-set rugby union player’s drunken rape of a teenager only stopped when a ‘terrifying’ domestic cat walked into the room.
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A Queanbeyan rugby union player who drunkenly raped a teenager and only stopped his vile sex attack when his victim’s cat walked into the room sat in disbelief as a judge ordered he be taken away to jail.
ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Helen Murrell on Tuesday found Ropati Dominic “Dom” Finau, 25, guilty of one count of rape, but cleared him of a second count of rape and a count of inflicting harm.
Finau and his large throng of supporters were visibly shocked as Chief Justice Murrell revoked his bail and ordered him sent off to Canberra’s prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
A week-long trial heard Finau had been drinking heavily at a buck’s night in November 2018 when he began chatting to his victim while his mates were in a fight with bouncers at Kokomo’s nightclub in Civic.
As the night wore on, the woman, then 18, repeatedly resisted Finau’s attempts to do any more than dance and kiss, and agreed for Finau’s taxi to drop her home.
When the taxi stopped, Finau said he needed a glass of water and that he felt sick and asked to go up to the woman’s apartment.
While the woman was getting changed in her room, Finau stripped off into his underwear, and lay on the couch with a partial erection.
The woman told him to get dressed wanted him to leave, and said “I just want to go to bed”.
Chief Justice Murrell accepted the woman’s account that, “after grabbing (her), (Finau) pushed her over and pinned her down so that she was lying on the sofa on her back.”
“They were grappling and (Finau) managed to kick the complainant’s tracksuit pants to the area of her feet.
“He tried to push her legs open while she tried to close them”.
The woman repeatedly said: “get off me”, “this is not happening, stop it” and “no, stop, I don’t want to have sex, I don’t want you to do this”, which Finau ignored.
The attack stopped when the woman’s cat appeared, leaving Finau terrified.
The woman, in a text message to a friend, said the powerfully build rugby union player was a “f*cking creep who wasn’t leaving me alone” on the night of the attack.
Chief Justice Murrell said Finau’s account of the night was “disingenuous”, “problematic” and said was a “bizarre form of comedic bravado” for Finau to confide in a mate about his erectile dysfunction just hours after the attack.
Finau will be sentenced at a later date.