Canberra man accused of sexually assaulting woman he held captive found guilty
Sisituutuumata Fulivai faced the ACT Supreme Court, charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
In short:
A man has been found guilty of raping, assaulting and forcibly confining a woman at a Lyneham residence in June 2024.
Sisituutuumata Fulivai, 46, was found guilty of 20 charges by an ACT Supreme Court jury.
What's next?
Fulivai will be sentenced later this year.
Warning: This story contains details that may be distressing to some readers.
An ACT Supreme Court jury has taken less than a day to find a Canberra man guilty of confining and brutally assaulting a woman, who was later rescued by police as she ran along a road screaming and naked.
Sisituutuumata Fulivai, 46, looked down frowning as the jury delivered guilty verdicts for 20 charges including forcible confinement, rape and assault.
Fulivai was also found guilty of choking the woman and threatening to kill her and members of her family.
She had suffered more than 50 separate injuries.
Victim held captive for days
The victim said she had managed to escape as she was being assaulted near the front door.
Police patrolling nearby found her as she fled the man's Lyneham house in June 2024.
She told police she had been held captive for two days while Fulivai raped and repeatedly assaulted her, before she was able to fight her way out of his home.
The jury was told the woman had met Fulivai, known as "Islander Matty", a few days earlier when she and her friends went over to his house, where they had drinks and used drugs.
The woman stayed the night and they had consensual sex.
But she said Fulivai's mood changed when he became jealous after another friend had come to the house.
The woman said Fulivai had accused her of wanting to have sex with his friend.
A police video made the day after her escape and played to the court shows the woman with bruises to her face.
"It was supposed to be a one night stand," she said in her interview.
"When his friend came it just went the complete opposite way to anything I'd ever seen."
She said she tried to leave, but was scared and he convinced her to stay.
ACT police officers found the victim running naked and screaming on a Lyneham street. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
The woman described being hit repeatedly for hours and beaten with household objects.
"The first couple of times … I kind of wasn't expecting it, until I kind of picked up the pattern and knew it was coming so I would prepare myself," she said.
At one point he ordered her to take off her clothes, and threatened to kill her and her family.
She said at another time he pressed a knife against her neck and chest and told her she would not leave alive.
The jury also heard Fulivai had choked the woman to the point she passed out multiple times, and that she woke up to find him having sex with her.
"I didn't think I was going to make it out of there,"she said.
Accused takes the stand
Fulivai took to the stand during the trial, telling the jury he had acted in self defence and saying the woman had "stitched him up" and that she deliberately "made that story up to the coppers".
He said he was assaulted by the woman, when two balaclava-wearing intruders began rummaging through his house.
He claimed when he asked for help, the woman got up and assaulted him, including standing on a table to kick him in the head, hitting him with his mother's crutch and stabbing him with a screwdriver.
He admitted to striking the woman with the crutches several times "to discourage her from attacking" him, and hit and shoved her to get her away from him.
But he denied choking, assaulting or ever having sex with the woman.
"By no means was I violent. Aggressive, but not violent," he said during cross examination.
"This was self-defence."
'Far-fetched and fanciful'
Prosecutor Marina Lucero told the jury Mr Fulivai's version of events "beggars belief".
She described his account as "far-fetched and fanciful".
She said there was no "logical explanation" for why the woman would run naked into the street to police on a winter's night, if she'd been the aggressor.
"If it was all a stitch-up, when did she have time to organise this? You've seen phone records,"she said.
Ms Lucero said the woman had given a consistent account, and been candid about her drug use and lifestyle.
The jury agreed, after beginning deliberating on Friday afternoon and delivering its verdict this morning.
Fulivai will be sentenced later this year.