Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne set to front state’s highest court in bid to overturn rape convictions

Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne will face the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday in a bid to have his rape convictions overturned. But the Crown says his guilty verdicts should stand.

Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne, pictured during one of his three rape trials, will challenge guilty verdicts in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

Lawyers for disgraced rugby league star Jarryd Hayne say the jury overseeing his rape trial got it wrong when they found him guilty of sexually assaulting a female fan inside a home at Newcastle on the NRL Grand Final night in 2018.

Hayne, a two-time Dally M medal winner and recipient of the international NRL player of the year award, was found guilty of two charges of digital and oral sexual assault following a high-profile trial last year – the third trial since he was charged in 2018.

Hayne was sentenced to four years and nine months behind bars over the attack, with a non-parole period of three years.

However, the former Parramatta Eels fullback has always maintained his innocence and launched an appeal against his conviction within days of being sentenced.

Jarryd Hayne is taken into custody at the King St Courts in Sydney after being found guilty of rape. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

With his appeal scheduled for hearing in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday, documents filed with the court ahead of the proceedings and obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal Hayne’s legal team will attempt to argue the jury’s guilty verdicts were “unreasonable” given the evidence presented at his trial.

However, Crown submissions filed with the court said the appeal should be thrown out, with the evidence conclusively showing there was “no significant possibility in this case that an innocent person has been convicted”.

The court previously heard at each of the trials the 26-year-old woman had given evidence that she was sexually interested in Hayne but that all possibility of sex between them evaporated for her when she realised that the taxi he’d arrived in had remained waiting outside the home, ready to take him back to Sydney.

The woman said Hayne pulled off her pants and was rough and forceful as he digitally and orally violated her for about 30 seconds, despite her saying “no” and “stop”.

Hayne claims the acts were entirely consensual.

The court documents said Hayne’s legal team would argue the woman’s version of events was “changeable” and her actions after the incident were “inconsistent with forcible rape”.

Hayne pictured during his playing days with the Parramatta Eels. Picture. Phil Hillyard

They will also seek to convince appeal judges Anthony Meagher, Stephen Rothman and Deborah Sweeney that the presiding judge, Graham Turnbull, made the wrong decision by ruling the woman did to have to give evidence about a 2021 interaction she had with a man who she had been messaging on the day of incident and that the judge’s ruling resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

The Crown said all three grounds should be dismissed outright, noting the woman had been “consistent, open and straightforward” in her evidence during each of the trials.

Hayne is due to appear in court via video link on Wednesday, where he will be represented by barrister Tim Game, SC.

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