Two men have been jailed for raping a single mother who was heading home from shopping for her mother in a rural village. 

Fetuao Fata Roketi and Faaiuaso Piula Tuivanu were sentenced by the Supreme Court this month after they pleaded guilty to the rape of a 23-year-old woman.

According to the summary of facts the complainant used to date Roketi for a brief three months in the past and did not know Tuivanu. 

The court heard that the woman cared for her elderly mother and was making her way to a shop in the rural village to do shopping/.

While she was making her way back home she was stopped by Roketi who told her that he could take her home and warned her that there were men from the village drinking alcohol and possessed a knife. 

The uncontested summary stated that Roketi insisted that he accompany the victim home and had asked her to stop by an abandoned shack on the way to get his beer bottle. 

Although the victim objected to going in the house Roketi insisted and took her inside telling her they would go to get his bottle first. 

When they got in the secluded house that had a room Roketi pushed the victim on the bed and raped her while she tried to fight back. 

Shortly after this Tuvanu who was waiting outside, reportedly came into the room and also raped the woman despite her objection. 

The court heard when the men were finished they left the victim in the house and she later went crying home and the matter was reported to police. 

In sentencing the men, Senior Supreme Court Judge Justice Vui Clarence Nelson said Roketi played a primary role in the offending being the ex-boyfriend. 

He said the second defendant wasn’t in the room when Roketi raped the victim but went along with what was happening. 

Justice Nelson said the complainant trusted the first defendant, a trust that was misplaced and abused noting the premeditating feature of the offending. 

He added the second defendant didn’t just join in by coincidence, he was either aware of it or at least was invited by Roketi. 

“In this regard, I reject the accounts given by the defendants to the probation officer obtained in the presentencing report,” said Justice Nelson. 

“Where they claimed the complainant consented to have sexual acts because those accounts are inconsistent with their pleas of guilty to rape.”

The court also heard about the impact of the offending on the victim and how she was scared, felt lost and wanted to commit suicide. 

Justice Nelson made reference to traditional ifoga and settlement that was conducted and neither defendant were present during the process nor had they apologised to her. 

He said while the law of the country takes into account traditional apology, it does not require that the offender be present, something that he said lacks the condition of the value of a face to face apology. 

Justice Nelson said perhaps it was time for the current law to be amended and consider the inclusion of face to face apology noting complainants of sexual assault often regard that of much greater value than family reconciliation and settlement. 

“Because it’s a personal apology for what was effectively a personal humiliation and interrogation,” he added.  

For Roketi the prosecution proposed a 15 year starting point for a sentence which was accepted and uplifted by two years for his previous conviction and reoffending pending another case. 

Time was deducted for the traditional apology, village penalty and early guilty plea leaving 12 years imprisonment for Roketi to serve. 

For Tuivanu, the court noted he went along with his friend's plan and his role in the offending was lesser than that of the first defendant. 

The court took 10 years as starting time and deducted time for the early guilty plea, a clean record and noted the defendant’s service in the community and his parents being church ministers. 

Tuivanu has also been banished from the village in Upolu for his offending. He was sentenced to six years in jail.