A Ugandan rugby player who once played at Nairobi’s Safari 7 in 2013 has been jailed for raping a woman.
Most of us believe that friendship is a place of trust, a space where we feel safe. But for one woman in Cardiff, that trust was shattered in the most horrifying way by a man she once called a friend.
Philip Pariyo, a former Ugandan rugby player, had built a new life in Wales after seeking asylum.
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But behind his friendly exterior lurked a predator, a man who violated not only the body of a woman who trusted him but also her sense of safety and dignity.
“No one in the world should go through what I did, fighting and begging for my life,” the woman said in her heartbreaking impact statement as per BBC.
“It has left lasting impacts on me, and has felt like an open wound that I can never heal from.”
The betrayal was complete. She had met Pariyo in 2019 at a funeral in Cardiff, and over time, they grew close.
But in June 2021, that bond turned into a nightmare when Pariyo attacked her in a flat where they were staying with others, including his pregnant girlfriend. Despite her clear refusals, he forced himself upon her, disregarding her cries for help.
This was not a moment of misunderstanding. It was not an accident. It was a calculated act of cruelty.
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The next morning, Pariyo accompanied the woman to a chemist to buy the morning-after pill. In an act of chilling audacity, he even suggested buying condoms, implying he wanted to force himself on her again.
The woman’s words paint a picture of devastation and lasting pain. “It’s made me feel dirty, numb and tainted. He invaded my body by force and branded me from within. He became an unwanted part of my body that I can’t get rid of.”
But even when faced with overwhelming evidence, Pariyo refused to accept responsibility. He denied raping her, forcing her to relive her trauma in open court.
His lies crumbled in December 2024 when he was found guilty. At his sentencing, Judge Celia Hughes did not mince words.
She called his crime an “appalling attack and violation of a woman you called a friend.” She condemned his refusal to plead guilty, which had only deepened the survivor’s suffering.
“Someone with your physical strength and who played at such a high level in your sport should act as a role model to others. But instead you manhandled this woman as entirely as you wished,” the judge told him.
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His actions have left an irreversible scar on the woman’s life. She will never be the same. “She will never be the same strong confident woman she was before she came to Cardiff to see you, because of your sexual greed,” Judge Hughes added.
Pariyo, who had sought refuge in the UK by claiming he was persecuted in Uganda for allegedly being homosexual, now faces a grim future.
He will spend the next four and a half years behind bars. But for the woman he hurt, the sentence is for life. The trust he shattered, the pain he inflicted—these are things that no prison time can undo.
