By Brett Lackey for Daily Mail Australia
A rugby league player has been jailed for two years after he raped a child he met after securing a job as an unqualified teacher’s aide.
Viliami Teukava Fakavamo Paki, 24, moved from New Zealand to Emerald in Queensland‘s Central Highlands where he signed with QRL club the Mackay Cutters in 2018.
Mackay District Court heard that an injury forced him to leave the sport the following year. He found work at a school in the region where he met his victim despite not having any teaching qualifications, The Daily Mercury reports.
Paki plead not guilty to digital rape and indecent treatment of a child charges, but a jury disagreed, finding him guilty of four counts of rape on Thursday.
He was acquitted on the indecent treatment of a child charge.
A conviction was recorded which would usually require him to be deported under the Migration Act for failing the ‘good character’ test.
But Paki could be allowed to stay in Australia, according to his defence barrister, who said the government would take into account how long he had lived in the country and the seriousness of his crimes.
The court heard the offending occurred over two months in 2020 and that Paki only stopped when other women his own age started ‘showing interest in him’.
There were no threats of violence or drugs and alcohol involved.
Judge Michael Byrne said the offending had ‘intruded into the normal upbringing of a (young) girl’.
He said Paki had formed the idea the offending was not predatory in part due to ‘immaturity’.
‘The jury accepted you digitally penetrated her on four occasions,’ Judge Byrne said.
The 24-year-old was sentenced to four years jail and will serve two years behind bars with the remaining two years suspended.
