SUVA - Fiji and former Wellington rugby prop Bill Cavubati will be arrested and jailed if he returns to Fiji.

The Fiji High Court has imposed a six-month prison sentence for an assault Cavubati is alleged to have committed in an island night club three years ago.

The High Court revived a suspended sentence, first imposed when he appeared on the assault charge in July last year.

Cavubati is currently in New Zealand.

Judge Nazhat Shameem said Cavubati, who represented Fiji on a northern hemisphere tour a few weeks ago, displayed "cowardice and callousness when he brutally assaulted the man."

She said national rugby players were considered role models in Fiji, particularly by the young.

Cavubati known in rugby circles as 'Big Bill' was originally given a suspended by the magistrate's court on charges of assaulting Manasa Baravilala.

He had been sentenced to one year's imprisonment, a penalty suspended for two years, and fined $500.

But the director of public prosecution appealed against the sentence, arguing that a jail sentence should be imposed in cases of causing grievous harm with intent.

The court had been told Cavubati, who played 55 games for Wellington in the mid-1990s, punched Mr Baravilala on the jaw during a night out on December 12, 1999 and pushed him against the show glass of the Suva Handicraft shop at Ratu Sukuna House.

The glass broke and Mr Baravilala was pulled out by Cavubati and dragged to a car park where he was beaten around the head. The assault was stopped by a passer-by and Baravilala was taken to hospital where he spent four days.

He required plastic surgery to his nose and had lost three teeth.

Justice Shameem said that courts must send a message that such violence which was neither provoked nor short lived, would not be tolerated.

"It is apparent the suspended sentence and fine was quite wrong in principle and manifestly lenient," she said.

"The brutal and sustained violence inflicted on the victim, the fact that he suffered fractures and other injuries that required plastic surgery and overseas dental work, the fact that the attack was entirely unprovoked and the act of kicking a man who is down and already seriously injured, should have led inevitably to a custodial sentence."

Justice Shameen said Cavbati displayed both callousness and cowardice in the way he attacked the victim and then continued to kick him around the head when he was lying on the ground semi-conscious and unable to defend himself."

She said a sentence of 12 months imprisonment would have been appropriate but a considerable reduction must be given for the fact that Cavubati had served much of his suspended term and had paid his fine.

"I have further been told that he now lives in New Zealand with his family and has a responsible position in the Department of Social Welfare," Justice Shameem said.

Cavubati, who recently returned with the national team from the United Kingdom tour, is understood to be living in the Wairarapa.

A spokesman for the Fijian Justice Department said Cavubati could be arrested when he returned to Fiji.

Mr Baravilala said last night he was relieved that justice had prevailed.

"Now Cavubati should face the full brunt of it," the businessman said, adding he lost his earning capacity in 1999, "just as I was about to start a new venture."

- NZPA

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