by Martin Haffner Associate Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man has been charged with the rape and sexual assault of a Virgin Airlines flight crew member during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Fiji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fijian Acting Police Commissioner Juki Fong confirmed to the ABC that a local suspect was in custody over the alleged attack, which occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alleged victim, a 21-year-old Melbourne woman, was separated from the rest of her crew during a night out in Martintar, a popular entertainment district in Nadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to police records obtained by the ABC, she was allegedly assaulted on her way to her hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second crew member was robbed and sustained facial injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police investigations into that separate incident continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man is due to appear in court in Fiji’s Western Division on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously a Virgin spokesperson said the airline was aware of the incident and “our focus is on the wellbeing of our team members affected”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said they were aware of the incident but due to privacy obligations they could not comment further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fiji boosting security: minister
Tourism Minister Viliame Gavoka told the ABC that Fiji’s cabinet was committed to “strengthen security” in Nadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have the tourism police, what we discover now is that we need to revamp that unit,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Having a heightened level of police presence can really help in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve seen tourism grow from what it was back then to now, to almost a million visitors for a small country like Fiji \u2026 the challenge is there.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gavoka said Fiji was overall a “safe country”, but one needed to exercise care in certain areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Last year, we reduced nightclub [opening] hours,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But when you’re on holidays, you don’t want to make too many rules, people are here to relax.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the majority of the crew members headed home on Thursday and the remaining ones should have departed Fiji by Friday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Martin Haffner Associate Editor A man has been charged with the rape and sexual assault of a Virgin Airlines flight crew member during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Fiji. Fijian Acting Police Commissioner Juki Fong confirmed to the ABC that a local suspect was in custody over the alleged attack, which occurred in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiji"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificislands.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}