Three rising stars of New Zealand rugby were jailed yesterday after they beat up a 15-year-old girl who was five months pregnant in an attempt to make her miscarry.
Shaun Williams-Metcalf, Geoffrey Ruaporo and Kyle Donovan were said to have lured the girl to an Auckland park after she became pregnant by Williams-Metcalf.
She drove to the park last August on the pretext of discussing the pregnancy with him. But the attackers smashed open her car door with a rock and dragged her out before punching her in the head and kicking her in the stomach. They took her cellphone and ran off, leaving her bleeding and crying for help.
Kevin Glubb, prosecuting, said it was a matter of luck that the girl’s daughter, now five months old, had been born healthy.
The three players had been picked to tour internationally with New Zealand’s under-16s rugby league team and were on a fast-track development programme for the Warriors, New Zealand’s only team in the scandal-hit Australian National Rugby League (NRL).
”I’m appalled at their actions — at how they’ve treated this young lady,” Mick Watson, the Warriors’ chief executive, said yesterday. Their contracts with the club have been terminated.
However, Frank Endacott, a former Wigan coach who was acting as the boys’ manager, provided glowing references for them. In court, Judge Andrew Becroft said: ”If you are the young men the references say you are, I hope you confront the prison sentence with courage.”
Williams-Metcalf and Ruaporo each received 18-month jail terms. Donovan, who was said to have made efforts to stop the attack, was given a 15-month sentence.
The NRL has been under a cloud since earlier this year when a woman claimed that six players from the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs had raped her in a hotel swimming pool.
The police investigation into the case was dropped last month under advice from prosecutors, despite officers saying they had evidence consistent with rape. – Guardian Unlimited