Jack de Belin trial: Alleged victim told colleague ‘I got raped last night’

A woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by NRL player Jack de Belin arrived at her work the next day “glassy-eyed”, a trial heard.

A young woman who NRL player Jack de Belin allegedly sexually assaulted arrived at her work the next day “glassy-eyed” before telling a colleague: “I got raped last night”, a trial has been told.

St George Illawarra Dragons forward de Belin, 30, and his friend Callan Sinclair, 23, are accused of sexually assaulting the woman, then 19, after they all met at a Wollongong bar called Mr Crown during a Christmas pub crawl in December, 2018.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated sexual assault and say the encounter with the woman at a townhouse where de Belin’s cousin was living was consensual.

Jack de Belin arrives at the Downing Centre court complex in Sydney on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Joel Carrett

A hospitality manager told Downing Centre District Court on Thursday the woman had arrived at a Wollongong restaurant where they worked the following day and seemed unlike her usual “bubbly” self.

“She wasn’t herself that morning, she was quite blank, sad, glassy eyes, she seemed preoccupied, she’s normally quite bubbly, fun-loving, social, she’s smiley — she was definitely not that type that morning, blank, she wasn’t really talkative,” the colleague said.

The colleague told the court the woman had said without any prompting that she had “issues with two guys” before confiding in her further.

Jack de Belin (left). Picture: NCA NewsWire / Joel Carrett

Crown prosecutor David Scully told the court: “She said ‘I got raped last night’, is that right?” to which the colleague replied: “Yes”.

“I was straight away in shock and I was straight away like ‘are you joking, are you serious, what was the go, tell me what happened?’,” the colleague said.

“We moved to where the scullery is, where we drop all of our dirty plates from customers, that’s where we discussed it a little bit further.

“She said that she got raped last night and she told me two guys their names … she said Jack de Belin and Callan Sinclair.”

The colleague said when they were talking she had repeatedly asked the woman if she had told the men “no” during the incident.

“Throughout the whole of her telling me what had happened, I continued to say ‘did you say no?’ and she told me that the whole time she was saying ‘no, please, please stop’ and ‘no please’ and that she didn’t want them to look at her,” the colleague said.

The colleague then went with the woman to Wollongong police station to report the incident before accompanying her to a hospital.

The court has heard evidence from the woman that she was reluctant to go inside the townhouse where she was allegedly raped. She claimed she only did so to use the toilet.

The trial before Judge Nicole Noman continues.