Jarryd Hayne trial: Court hears evidence from doctor who assessed former NRL star’s accuser

A court has heard ex-NRL star Jarryd Hayne “acted like a d***head” in the bedroom of his accuser as new details are read out in court.

The doctor who examined Jarryd Hayne’s accuser following the alleged assault said it was the first time she had seen what was in front of her throughout decades practicing as a GP, a court has heard.

The court heard Hayne told his friend the alleged victim was a “full-blown weirdo” who was “filthy” because a taxi was waiting outside on the night he allegedly assaulted her.

Hayne, 35, pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual intercourse without consent after being accused of non-consensual oral and digital sex acts on September 30, 2018 - the NRL Grand Final night.

The Crown alleges Hayne left the woman bleeding and in pain.

Hayne attended the sixth day of trial at the NSW District Court alongside his wife, Amelia Bonnici, where evidence of Newcastle GP Dr Susan Smart was read out to the jury.

The court heard Dr Smart saw the alleged victim five days before the alleged assault to perform a pap smear.

She saw the alleged victim again on October 3 – three days after the alleged assault – and again 13 days later.

In examination from a previous trial which was read out on Monday, Dr Smart told the court that during the pap smear, she did not notice anything unusual about the alleged victim’s body.

On October 3, the woman attended the practice again due to ongoing pain from the alleged assault and to confide in Dr Smart about the incident, the court heard.

Dr Smart told the court she could see bruising, a small lump of tissue, abrasion and redness.

When the woman returned on October 16 – nearly two weeks later – Dr Smart assessed her injuries again.

Former NRL star, Jarryd Hayne arrives at Downing Centre on Monday with his partner and legal team. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

The court heard she could “still see” raised tissue which had healed with a “lumpy area where the injury had been”.

She was asked by the Crown prosecutor: “Had you come across that very often, if at all?”

She responded: “No, I hadn’t seen that,” adding the lump of tissue had not been there prior to the injury, when she did the pap smear.

During reread cross-examination by the defence barrister, Dr Smart said she had not been specifically trained to work in forensic sexual assault.

But she was asked: “In the course of your medical practice, in 25 years or so, have you been involved in taking histories from people who report being sexually assaulted?”

She responded said: “Yes”

The defence barrister asked if there was nothing in her original notes from October 3 about the alleged victim having said no to oral sex, to which Dr Smart said: “correct”.

Following Dr Smart’s evidence, the court heard from another doctor who assessed Hayne’s accuser six weeks after the alleged assault, Dr Maria Nittis.

Via video link, Dr Nittis told the court she had assessed hundreds – if not thousands – of sexual assault victims.

She told the court the “blunt force” injury was “definitely” caused by penetration and was a type of injury generally caused by either skin that had stretched and then torn or been crushed.

Asked by Mr Sfinas if it was consistent with sexual activity being “rough or forceful,” she said she did not know.

“Injury depends on a lot of things and variables… lubrication, position, willingness; force is one of those variables,” Dr Nittis said.

Reading out notes taken during the medical visit, Dr Nittis told the court Hayne’s accuser said he “acted like a d***head” when he got on top of her in her bedroom and left her “hurting like hell”.

Dr Nittis told the court the alleged victim told her conversations with Hayne had “been flirty” and he had invited her to a party before they met but she said “no way” when she learned only men were there.

Dr Nittis said the alleged victim told her she rang Hayne and asked him to meet her at her mother’s home, where she was living.

The court heard the alleged victim said he arrived appearing drunk and “wanted to have a singalong” so he used her laptop to Google some tunes.

It heard Hayne’s accuser told Dr Nittis:

“He had gotten on top of me and I was telling him to stop being a d***head”.

The court heard the alleged victim told Dr Nittis he “pushed her backwards onto the bed” and kept trying to touch her.

It heard she “momentarily stopped resisting” before Hayne pushed her pants down and she tried to grab them up, but he “put his head down there”.

“She said it had been rough and she couldn’t really tell what he was doing – he stepped back and there was blood everywhere,” Dr Nittis said.

Dr Nittis told the court the alleged victim said that later, when she went into the shower, she was “hurting like hell… stinging really bad”.

It hurt to urinate, the court heard, and she was sore for about a week.

Later on Monday, the court heard Hayne said in a recorded phone call to ex-NSW Origin teammate Mitchell Pearce how he had “popped in” to the woman’s house on September 30 and she was “filthy” because a cab was out the front.

He said she was sending him nudes on Snapchat before the alleged incident and was a “full-blown weirdo”.

The court heard Hayne told Pearce they were fooling around and the woman started to bleed a bit, which he thought was because he cut her with his fingernail. He said it was “weird” but now she’s trying to say he was “aggressive”.

Earlier in the trial, the alleged victim’s best friend of 10 years gave evidence about the night of the alleged assault.

She told Crown prosecutor Mr Sfinas she asked Hayne’s accuser to see photos of the injuries to make sure she was okay, because she was concerned about what had happened.

The court heard she texted her friend saying “He ripped you by being rough down there... If you kept saying no, that’s rape”.

It heard the alleged victim sent her friend a screenshot of Hayne texting her to “go doctor tomorrow” after she told him she was hurting and crying in her bedroom on the night of the alleged assault.

In response to the screenshot, the friend texted the alleged victim: “He didn’t even say sorry, just ‘go to doctor’… he is a c***”.

Elaborating, the woman told the court she assumed Hayne would’ve apologised if he “hurt her in the way she was describing it,” adding it “seemed like a cold response”.

Hayne and his Defence Barrister Margaret Cunneen SC. Picture: NCA Newswire/Gaye Gerard

Hayne’s defence barrister, Margaret Cunneen KC,quizzed the friend about how much she knew of the alleged victim’s and Hayne’s interactions in the lead up to September 30.

The friend told the court she was not aware of sexual messages exchanged, including the alleged victim saying “I imagined what it would be like f****ing you”.

She said she had only spoken with the alleged victim once about the fact she was speaking with Hayne, but she didn’t ask more about it because she didn’t follow football and “didn’t know him to be a well-known star” so it “wasn’t a big thing” for her.

The friend told the court the alleged victim seemed “down” the next day, including by sitting in a chair at a party and not interacting with anyone.

Ms Cunneen suggested the friend was down because she was suffering from illness which caused her eye to be “almost closed,” to which the friend said she seemed more down that day “because of what had happened” and that her friend’s eye had been improving by that point.

The court earlier heard the complainant reached out to Hayne on Instagram two weeks before the alleged assault and they chatted on social media until first meeting on September 30.

It heard the crown alleged that a “defining moment” for the woman was when she realised a taxi was waiting outside and she decided she did not want to have sex with Hayne, but he continued to pull her pants off and perform sex acts which left her bleeding.

The Crown submits he cleaned himself up and left.

The court heard he had been at a bucks’ party in Newcastle that weekend and paid $550 for a taxi to take him back to Sydney, which stopped at the woman’s home in Fletcher on Newcastle’s outskirts on the way.

The trial continues.

Originally published as Jarryd Hayne trial: Court hears evidence from doctor who assessed former NRL star’s accuser