Alice Springs nightclub sexual assault leaves woman feeling ‘worthless’

A woman was attacked on the dance floor at a Territory pub. Now the offender, who was originally charged with rape, has faced court on a lower charge. Find out why here.

The court heard the then 40-year-old began leering at the woman after she had attended the club with her boyfriend and three female friends.

A Territory woman was left feeling “worthless” and considering self-harm while suffering flashbacks to a “devastating” nightclub sexual assault by a dance-floor predator, a court has heard.

Ratu Marovia pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to one count of gross indecency after attacking the 28-year-old while she danced with her boyfriend in Alice Springs last year.

The court heard the then 40-year-old began leering at the woman some time after midnight on May 14 after she had attended the club with her boyfriend and three female friends.

Marovia then moved behind the woman as she danced and when she bent over, he reached under her skirt, moved her underwear to the side and performed an act on her before pulling his hand away.

When she stopped dancing and looked back at him, Marovia “started laughing at her” and she told her friends what he had done before they all left the dance floor following “a brief altercation” between him and her boyfriend.

The woman asked security to call the police who arrived and arrested Marovia at the front of the premises at about 1.30am.

In sentencing, Chief Justice Michael Grant said after Marovia sobered up, he admitted to being the person seen near the victim on CCTV footage but denied assaulting her.

Chief Justice Grant said Marovia was originally charged with raping the woman, but that charge was dropped when he offered to plead guilty to the alterative charge of gross indecency.

He said a victim impact statement from the woman related how she had been “seriously affected by the gross lack of respect that you showed her and her body on this night”.

“The event still causes her deep emotional upset some nine months later, and she experiences disturbing and continuing flashbacks,” he said.

“She was bedridden for a time after this incident — that has caused her financial loss in the form of loss of income for the days she has spent off work.

“She has also expended her own money seeing a psychologist in an attempt to address the consequences of your conduct.”

Chief Justice Grant said an important part of the sentencing process was to punish Marovia for his actions and “to send a message to other men in the community that they cannot act like this”.

“As she says in that victim impact statement: ‘Some men feel like it’s their right to do as they please with a woman’,” he said.

Chief Justice Grant sentenced Marovia to three years in prison, suspended after 12 months.

*For 24-hour sexual violence support call the national hotline 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or MensLine on 1800 600 636.