When taxi driver Helen Morel arrived at a house in Newcastle on NRL grand final night in 2018, she was told she was going to have to ferry someone to Sydney for the lucrative fee of $550.
She turned around to find Jarryd Hayne sitting in the back of her taxi drinking a Vodka Cruiser from a four-pack resting in his lap.
Ms Morel was a key witness during Hayne’s 11-day trial that resulted in him being found guilty of two counts of sexual assault.
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Hayne is facing up to 14 years in jail after the jury accepted a then 26-year-old woman did not consent to him performing oral and digital sex on her inside the Fletcher home she shared with her mother.
The assault took place after Hayne stopped in at the woman’s house on the way back to Sydney after spending two days partying and drinking with mates at a bucks party.
Ms Morel told the court she picked Hayne up from the New Lambton house where much of the bucks was being held, waited 46 minutes outside the home as the assault took place and eventually drove him to Sydney.
The presence of the taxi proved crucial, with the woman – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – insisting she refused to give consent because he had a ride waiting to take him back to Sydney.
After being alerted to the job, Ms Morel made her way to pick up Hayne where his former teammate Kane Evans negotiated the price with the taxi driver.
She told the court Hayne paid the $550 upfront as soon as he got into the taxi.
Ms Morel set off on her journey as Hayne sat in the back drinking his Vodka Cruiser.
But he quickly told her they needed to make a detour and stop at a house in Fletcher to “pick up a bag”.
The taxi driver said it was fine as the house wasn’t far from the M3 and Hayne directed her using the GPS system on his phone.
She noticed he was on his phone “quite a bit” before arriving at the house and assuring her he would only be a few minutes.
As Hayne walked into the house, Ms Morel told the court he placed an empty bottle on the letterbox.
“It was a half-drunk bottle of the mixed drink,” she said.
While she waited for Hayne, Ms Morel sent a text message to a colleague, estimating she had waited about “half an hour or a bit more maybe”.
As time went on, she became increasingly impatient and wondered why Hayne had not emerged.
Crown prosecutor John Sfinas told the court the victim said she was first alerted to the presence of the taxi when she heard Ms Morel beeping her horn.
But in her evidence, Ms Morel had no recollection.
“Somebody said that but I don’t remember doing that,” she told the jury.
“It’s not something I would normally do but sometimes it has to be done, I don’t recall.”
As time went on, Ms Morel became increasingly impatient and wondered why Hayne had not emerged.
Eventually, she went and knocked on the door, speaking to the victim’s mother and asking to speak to Hayne.
“I asked her if Jarryd was coming soon or was he ready to go, or something along those lines,” Ms Morel told the jury.
She said she was feeling “annoyed or frustrated” as she wanted to get on the road to Sydney and head back to Newcastle.
“A few minutes later he leaned through the car window and said he’d be a few more minutes because his bag hadn’t arrived,” she went on.
Hayne eventually returned and they continued on to Sydney.
Hayne was convicted after the court was told that when he returned to the woman’s room, he performed oral and digital sex on her despite her saying “stop” several times.
On the drive to Sydney, Hayne asked the driver to stop at a service station so he could purchase a phone charger.
She eventually dropped Hayne off in Alexandria, in inner Sydney, where he was due to attend a function.
