Preacher jailed for sex attack
A PREACHER will serve 16 months in prison for raping and holding a work colleague against her will during a terrifying attack.
Sione Fevaleaki, a 46-year-old married father-of-four, was sentenced to four years jail for the attack on a female co-worker.
Crown prosecutor Caroline Marko told Ipswich District Court the attack was "committed in calculated fashion".
The court heard Fevaleaki worked with the victim at a Boonah factory and invited her out for drinks on October 13 last year.
They drank three beers each at a Boonah pub before heading to Kalbar for a meal.
They left at 9pm, and Fevaleaki offered to drive the victim back to her car in Boonah - but instead drove in the opposite direction.
He pulled over and began to make sexual advances towards her, which she rejected, saying she had seen him with his wife and children.
The victim asked to be taken to her home.
Instead of obliging the request, Fevaleaki drove back through Boonah to an abandoned property on Podlich Rd where he "forced himself upon her", the court heard.
Fevaleaki then digitally raped the victim before attempting to rape her. He then drove back to his house, where the victim escaped from the car, flagging down the first car which passed by for help.
Ms Marko said the victim was a vulnerable person.
"He violated the trust the complainant had placed in him. She had struck up what she saw as a friendship with him," she told the court.
"He courted the opportunity to commit the offences. He held her prisoner in his car and he drove her to a relatively isolated, but more importantly unfamiliar location to commit the offences."
Fevaleaki pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault, deprivation of liberty, attempted rape and rape.
Defence barrister Geoff Seaholme said the act was out of character for his client, who was an active member and preacher at a Methodist church in Brisbane.
Judge Sarah Bradley said it was clear from the victim impact statement that the attack had had a "significant detrimental effect" on the woman.
"There was a significant difference between your respective physical sizes," she said.
"She said she was very scared of you and it would have been a terrifying ordeal for her."
Fevaleaki will be released after serving 16 months, with the remainder of the sentence suspended for five years.
