PARTY ATTACK | 

Twisted rapist brazenly boasts of modelling success on social media

Model student rapist describes himself as: ‘A hopeless romantic stuck in a hook-up culture’

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A MODEL who raped a student in five years ago, brazenly flaunted his success in modelling across social media while his victim had to suffer in silence.

And, callous as to the impact of his posts on the student he raped at a house party in Limerick in 2018, Laju Uwatse also posted videos on Tiktok describing himself as “a hopeless romantic stuck in a hook-up culture”.

In another, he wrote: “Growing up black in Ireland had us thinking we had to be white and play rugby or GAA to be considered attractive.”

However, on Monday last he was finally unmasked by the woman he raped after Danielle Lyons waived her anonymity so he could be publicly identified.

She told how, on April 20 2018, Uwatse carried her into a bedroom of an apartment in the Cratloe Student Village where a party was occurring before removing her shoes as she fell asleep.

The next morning when she woke, Uwatse asked her if she was on the pill and told her they’d had sex and the condom had broken.

When Danielle — who had not consented to sex — became upset, Uwatse left the apartment and gardai were called.

He was arrested in June 2018 and told gardai that the sex had been consensual.

Over the next four years Uwatse unleashed a barrage of videos and posts on social media, glorying in his success as a model.

He even participated in an interview with a national newspaper in January 2022, in which he was described as “leading the way for a new generation”.

The Nigerian-born model – who moved to Ireland aged nine – was described in the article as “quickly becoming one of our best-known exports in the fashion world”.

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During the interview that followed, Uwatse said he was working in Lifestyle Sports when he was spotted by a woman who booked models and his career took off after that.

Such was Uwatse’s confidence that the rape of Danielle would not come back to haunt him, he went on to extoll his own virtues as a person.

“Maybe a look will get you to a casting and that’s cool,” he said.

“But who you are as a person and what you stand for will take you so much further.

“Every casting director that I meet, I want to show myself and my personality because I’m getting booked for who I am. If clients really like you and they feel like they can relate and they feel comfortable working with you a lot, that will take you so much further than just being a good-looking person.”

Following his conviction on Monday, Uwatse was brought to the Midlands Prison where he will be housed in a sex offenders’ unit for the duration of his sentence.