The wife of ex-NRL superstar Jarryd Hayne has broken down in court after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at her Newcastle home almost five years ago.
After more than six days of deliberating, a jury on Tuesday found the two-time Dally M winner and ex-NFL convert guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
Following an 11 day trial in Sydney’s JMT District Court, the jury of six men and six women declared their verdict and convicted Hayne.
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The 35-year-old has walked into the John Madison Tower building in Sydney’s CBD every day with his wife Amelia Bonnici beside him, his mother, sisters and friends supporting him from the front row of the public gallery.
Ms Bonnici, who has been supporting her husband throughout the trial by sitting at the front of the public gallery dropped her head in her hands after the verdict was read out and started crying.
More than a dozen supporters sat shoulder to shoulder in the front two rows of the public gallery, with many shaking their heads in disbelief.
Hayne shook his head and looked down at his lap, while his mother held back tears from the front row of the public gallery.
Once the jury was sent out, Hayne walked over and held Ms Bonnici as she cried into his chest.
He then hugged his mother as he held back tears.
He is facing a maximum possible sentence of 14 years in jail.
Hayne pleaded not guilty and denied sexually assaulting the then 26-year-old woman at her home at Fletcher, on Newcastle’s outskirts, in September, 2018.
His first trial in Newcastle in 2020 ended in a hung jury, while he was convicted at a second trial in March 2021 and sent to prison for nine months until he successfully appealed the decision.
This jury, who heard fresh evidence from a man the victim texted on the same day, agreed with the prior jury and found Hayne guilty of performing oral and digital sex on the woman without her consent.
The jury was told the woman refused to consent to sex because the ex-Parramatta fullback had a taxi waiting outside.
He had been in Newcastle for a two-day bucks party and had organised to pay a cab driver $550 to take him back to Sydney, where he was required to attend an event at midnight.
Mr Hayne decided to “pop in” to the woman’s house on the way.
She gave him her address about 7.30pm and asked after him when he still hadn’t arrived an hour later: “Where are you fool?”
“It was up in the air, best case scenario I would be having sex with her, worst case I would just get introduced and that was it,” Mr Hayne told the court in prerecorded evidence.
Both agree the footballer tried to break the ice by asking to do a “singalong” and playing songs off her laptop, with an Ed Sheeran cover of ‘Wonderwall’ first up.
Things turned sour when an impatient taxi driver knocked at the door asking after Mr Hayne, who had told her he was just stopping in to “pick up a bag”.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said when she heard the taxi beeping outside her bedroom window she resolved there was “no way” she was going to consent to sex.
Crown prosecutor John Sfinas told the jury in his closing address the woman “felt like he had only come there for one thing”.
He said the presence of the taxi made her feel “like absolute crap” and “sad and stupid for flirting with him to start”.
The woman described herself as being in “fairyland” at the time, and pondered whether “this could maybe one day turn into something”.
But when she saw the taxi waiting outside, the woman felt like “absolute s**t”, the jury was told.
The pair had communicated via social media for several weeks leading up to the incident but had not met face-to-face before the evening of September 30 — the same night as the NRL grand final.
“I’m not gonna lie, I imagined what it would be like to be f***ing you when you started talking,” the woman said in a direct message to Hayne on Instagram.
Hayne was drinking on the taxi ride to the woman’s house and left an empty bottle of a Vodka Cruiser on the letterbox.
He told the court in prerecorded evidence he went into the woman’s bedroom and lay on her bed where he attempted to serenade her by singing along to some of his “go-to” songs on YouTube, including an Ed Sheeran cover of Oasis’s Wonderwall.
According to the woman, he forcibly kissed her and pushed her head into the pillow.
Mr Sfinas told the court the woman felt overpowered, with Hayne pulling off her jeans before sexually assaulting her despite saying “no” and “stop”.
But according to the NRL star, the woman kissed him back and stood up before taking off her own pants.
She described his actions as “forceful”, “fast” and “rough”, as he performed oral and digital sex on her, adding she said “no” and “no Jarryd” about three or four times.
He only stopped when they realised the woman was bleeding from her genitalia.
Hayne went into the bathroom to wash his hands before the woman got in the shower to clean off the blood, feeling “swelling” and “stinging” on her genitalia, the Crown told the court.
He allegedly caused two lacerations to the woman‘s genitalia – maintaining the injuries were an accident and he apologised.
While Hayne got up to wash his face in the bedroom’s ensuite, the woman got in the shower and said the injury was “stinging like mad”.
He quickly left, but Hayne insists he assured the woman she was alright before heading out.
Soon after, the woman sent him a string of text messages saying “I am hurting so much” and “I know I’ve talked about sex and stuff so much but I didn’t want to do that after knowing the taxi was waiting for you”.
Hayne replied: “Go doctor tomorrow.”
She also messaged another friend saying he was “rough” and he “ended up getting his hand down there”.
The woman said she thought Hayne “wanted to get the f**k out of here”, saying the “whole situation was weird”.
She sent another text to her friend saying: “I feel like I let it happen to myself by not screaming at him.”
At the time, the woman did not want to report the incident to police – she was confused, unsure if what had happened constituted rape.
She was also scared, telling another friend she didn‘t want it to be made public.
“I‘m too scared to report it. He would have the money to ruin me and the last thing I need is my life in the public eye,” she said.
The woman saw a doctor on October 3, three days after she was sexually assaulted.
Her allegations were reported to police after her brother in law contacted the NRL Integrity Unit without her knowledge at the beginning of November 2018.
On November 14 and 15 police watched over a Snapchat exchange between the woman and Mr Hayne, which started with the complainant saying: “I thought you would have at least asked if I was OK or not by now.”
“You said you were OK last time we spoke?” he wrote back.
She wrote: “You knew I definitely wasn’t OK from the damage that night … It was pretty messed up … you just left me that way.
“You should have just stopped when I said so.”
Mr Hayne wrote a series of messages back denying the woman’s claims.
“Wtf are you on about???” he said.
“You’re starting to sound suss.”
In an intercepted phone call between Mr Hayne and fellow NRL player Mitchell Pearce in November 2018, Mr Hayne told his friend the woman was a “full-blown weirdo” who had “wigged out” after their meeting.
He described the woman as a “young cow” who was “cuckoo”.
Mr Hayne said the woman had become attached to him and was “blowing up” because “I brushed her”.
Hayne was arrested on November 19, 2018, at Ryde Police Station.
