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 32 year old Philip Pariyo 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.
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.
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.
