NRL star Michael Jennings’ ex-wife Kirra Wilden suing him for rape
NRL star Michael Jennings is embroiled in a bitter civil court case where his ex-wife has accused him of repeatedly raping her during their relationship. He has strongly denied the claims and is not facing criminal charges.
Police & Courts
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NRL star Michael Jennings is embroiled in a civil court case where his ex-wife has accused him of repeatedly raping her during their relationship.
Kirra Michelle Wilden has claimed in court that Jennings, a premiership-winning centre and State of Origin flyer, raped her “five or six times” during their relationship, which ended when their marriage broke down in early-2016.
Jennings has strongly denied raping Ms Wilden and is defending the case that was heard over four days this week. He has not been charged and is not facing a criminal trial because Ms Wilden is suing him in a civil proceedings in the Sydney District Court.
Ms Wilden is seeking an order for Jennings to pay her damages for inflicting a personal injury of an unspecified amount. The court deals with claims of up to $750,000.
NSW Police said there was no record of a sexual assault complaint against Jennings.
Ms Wilden claimed in court the alleged rapes occurred between October 2014 and early 2016, after Jennings had been out partying and taking drugs during his playing days with the Sydney Roosters.
The 32-year-old also claimed in court that Jennings subjected her to verbal abuse by repeatedly calling her a slut, a whore, and useless.
Ms Wilden told the court she now suffers anxiety and panic attacks, impacting her ability to complete her studies to become a paramedic.
“I quite regularly still have panic attacks, I don’t sleep for weeks at a time,” Ms Wilden told the court while giving evidence on Wednesday.
“Sometimes I wake up in a panic sweating, sometimes, struggling to breathe … my chest was tight, short of breath, my heart races.”
Ms Wilden also told the court she had been unable to enjoy a normal sexual relationship with her second husband after her break up from Jennings.
“I would have a panic attack and tell him to stop because I would have flashbacks,” Ms Wilden told the court. “I would picture Michael forcing himself onto me and I just keep seeing that in my head.”
Ms Wilden gave evidence that the alleged rapes occurred at their homes in Kensington, Bella Vista and The Ponds when Jennings would come home drunk or drug-affected in the early hours of the morning.
“I just remember laying there and feeling dead,” she told the court about one of the alleged attacks. “I felt blank … like my soul had left my body.”
Ms Wilden told the court she didn’t tell anyone what allegedly happened “because I was embarrassed” and that she developed a fear of Jennings’ partying while she waited at home.
“I struggled to sleep because I didn’t know what was going to come home,” Ms Wilden told the court.
Her barrister Jeremy Morris SC told the court Ms Wilden “found it difficult to leave (Jennings)” but revealed the rape allegations to a lawyer in 2018 when she was divorcing the footballer.
Jennings says Ms Wilden’s rape allegations are a fabrication.
His barrister Murugan Thangaraj SC accused Ms Wilden of launching the case as a cash grab because she no longer had the glamorous social lifestyle provided by Jennings as a highly paid NRL player.
He also accused Ms Widen of using the court as a vehicle for revenge against Jennings.
“You believed Michael was cheating on you while you were together. You believe Michael treated you unfairly,” Mr Thangaraj told the court. “You warned him you would have your revenge.”
Ms Wilden denied both of Mr Thangaraj’s claims.
The barrister also tendered numerous text messages between the pair around the time of the alleged rapes in which Ms Wilden never mentioned being sexually assaulted.
Ms Wilden threatened to leave Jennings in the texts, giving reasons ranging from the NRL star cheating to staying out all night, but never for raping her.
Ms Wilden told the court her conversations with Jennings about the rapes only occurred orally, not by text.
Other texts showed Jennings being understanding and sympathetic to Ms Wilden’s desires not to have sex, Mr Thangaraj told the court.
The texts also showed Ms Wilden had sex with Jennings — or offered to — after the alleged rapes and after they separated in May 2016.
Mr Thangaraj also asked Ms Wilden if she had deliberately deleted text messages in an attempt to strengthen her case, which she denied.
Ms Wilden can be named because the case is not a criminal trial where the identities of sexual assault complainants are suppressed.
Jennings’ legal team argued for a non-publication order on his identity but it was rejected by Judge David Wilson SC.
Ms Wilden’s lawyers told the court that she “doesn’t oppose” a non-publication order but that her attitude was that “it’s for the court to decide”. Ms Wilden did not ask for her own identity to be suppressed.
Jennings is expected to give evidence when the case resumes next week.
He was suspended from the NRL last October after testing positive to Ligandrol and Ibutamoren. The Parramatta Eels have not renewed his contract.
MS WILDEN’S VERSIONS OF THE ALLEGED RAPES
Ms Wilden told the court Jennings was a “heavy partier” and that the alleged attacks occurred when he returned home either heavily intoxicated or on drugs.
“I struggled to sleep because I didn’t know what was going to come home,” Ms Wilden told the court.
Ms Wilden alleged that Jennings first raped her in October 2014 after returning drunk to their Kensington home.
She claims he raped her at least four more times but was unable to recall the exact dates.
Jennings strongly denies the allegations.
Describing the first alleged rape, Ms Wilden told the court: “Michael came home, I was in bed at the time and heard banging at the door.’
“I opened it (and) he was on hands and knees (and) crawled in the front door laughing,” she told the court.
Ms Wilden told the court that Jennings attempted to “touch” her in bed and called her “a slut” who was sleeping with other men.
“Then he laid on top of me and had his body weight pressing down on top of my body,” Ms Wilden told the court.
“I laid there looking away crying,” she told the court. “ … When he finished I sat in the shower (crying) … I felt violated and disgusting.”
Ms Wilden told the court she confronted Jennings the next morning.
“I said to him I didn’t want to have sex with you and that you forced me to do it … he said nothing (and) shrugged his shoulders.”
Ms Wilden told the court Jennings allegedly raped her a second time at Kensington.
“I told him to ‘stop, it’s not going to happen’,” Ms Wilden told the court.
She claims Jennings rolled on her and forcibly had sex with her while she turned her head away crying.
Ms Wilden told the court she felt “Disgusting, humiliated and ashamed of what happened because he was my partner and I thought he loved me.”
“I didn’t think it was assault because I thought it was my duty to have sex with him,” she told the court.
She then added: “I knew it was wrong … I felt violated, I felt betrayed.”
The couple later moved to Bella Vista where Ms Wilden claimed a third rape occurred.
“I pushed him off and tried to roll over,” Ms Wilden told the court. “ … He rolled me back.
“I told him ‘no’ and said ‘stop’,” she told the court. “He again …(called) … me a slut, telling me that I have all these guys … he rolled on top of me and attempted to pull my pants down again.
“I just remember laying there and feeling dead,” she told the court. “I felt blank … like my soul had left my body.
“I remember feeling dirty and disgusting like I had to wash it off,” she told the court. “The following morning I woke up and he had wet the bed … I woke him and told him he had wet the bed and he told me to get out of the room.”
Ms Wilden told the court she was doing laundry and found “satchels” with traces of white powder in Jennings’ clothes.
“I assumed he was out doing drugs,” she told the court.
Ms Wilden told the court she found satchels after two of the alleged rapes and assumed there was a link.
Ms Wilden told the court Jennings raped her two more times at their next home at The Ponds.
“I recall laying in bed crying, feeling like I was being crushed,” she told the court.
Ms Wilden told the court the alleged rapes left her suffering anxiety and insomnia.
“Sometimes I wouldn’t sleep at all,” she told the court.
“I would feel scared that he was going to come home and it would happen again,” she told the court. “Most of the time it didn’t happen … (but) … you never really know when it was going to.”
Ms Wilden’s claims Jennings verbally abused her, calling her a “slut” a “whore” and “useless”.
In her statement of claim, Ms Wilden wrote that the alleged rapes caused her to have problems with sex.
“My dislike of sex and intimacy has continued to the present time as intensely from the time I left Michael,” the court heard he statement said.
JENNINGS’ VERSION
Jennings and Ms Wilden sent thousands of text messages to each other during their relationship.
To support her case, Ms Wilden took screenshots of her messaging with Jennings.
But Jennings’s barrister accused Ms Wilden of deleting messages that were not favourable to her case.
Ms Wilden denied doing this and told the court that if any were missing, it was unintentional.
Mr Thangaraj told the court that one of the deleted messages was from 2017 and showed Ms Wilden “asking Mr Jennings for money”.
The barrister told the court the missing messages were uncovered because they were still on Jennings’ phone.
One of the exchanges occurred in October 2014 in the hours after one of the alleged rapes but made no mention of it.
“ … You repeatedly complained about cheating, lying and staying out late…,” Mr Thangaraj told Mr Wilden. “ … Not once in those periods do you suggest there was a sexual assault … Do you accept that?”
She later told the court that Jennings offered a “verbal” apology that “was a general apology for everything.”
In a text sent the morning after the alleged rape, Ms Wilden asking Jennings to take her to a wildlife park.
“Not once do you refer in a text to any sexual assault by Mr Jennings,” Mr Thangaraj put to Ms Wilden. “Despite thousands of texts … despite aggressive texts.”
Mr Thangaraj also told the court “not one” text showed Jennings referring to her as a “slut”, a “whore”, a “piece of shit” or a “dirty person”.
“You hate him so much because of his lies … cheating on you effectively,” Mr Thangaraj put to Ms Wilden. “Because of those lies he deserved to be shot.”
Mr Thangaraj told the court Ms Wilden texted Jennings after their break-up offering “shower sex” and had sex with him on another occasion in 2017.
Ms Wilden was accused of launching the case against Jennings for financial reasons and to preserve her status as a “WAG”.
“You had plans for life with Michael,” Mr Thangaraj put to Ms Wilden. “He offered you a lifestyle that you had never previously had … he had a very high income.”
Ms Wilden had a modest upbringing and Mr Thangaraj put it to her that Jennings provided a “lifestyle” that she had “never experienced before” and “you haven’t experienced since.”
This included an extremely expensive wedding at St Mary’s Cathedral and Doltone House that Ms Wilden denied cost $250,000.
Ms Wilden denied Mr Thangaraj’s assertion that her issues with sex were related to a medical condition that had existed since 2010 and that she had expressed this in text.
HOW THEY MET
The court heard Jennings and Ms Wilden met through mutual friends in 2010.
Ms Wilden told the court their relationship was “on and off” in the initial stages.
We began hanging out and I was moving house,” she told the court. “(Jennings) offered to help (me) move …”
She accepted and Jennings invited her to go to Brisbane to watch him play for the NSW Blues in that year’s State of Origin series.
“He asked me to be his girlfriend and it kind of just went from there,” Ms Wilden told the court.
Their relationship intensified and they moved in together in 2012.
The couple enjoyed overseas holidays together and went away to Europe and the UK where Jennings was representing Australia with the Kangaroos.
He proposed on December 3, 2013, Ms Widen told the court.
In 2015, the couple were married in a lavish affair at St Mary’s Cathedral in the Sydney CBD followed by a reception at Doltone House.
WHY DID SHE LAUNCH LEGAL ACTION?
Ms Wilden told the court it was her second marriage that set in chain a series of events that led to her claiming Jennings had raped her.
After her relationship with Jennings ended, Ms Wilden formed a relationship with Justin Maamary and the pair were engaged in May 2018 and married in April 2019, the court heard.
Mr Maamary gave evidence that Ms Wilden told him in November or December 2018 that she had allegedly been raped by Jennings, leaving him “shocked”.
He put her in contact with lawyers to finalise her divorce from Jennings, the court heard.
During the meetings with lawyers Ms Wilden made the allegations that she had been raped by Jennings.
It was after this, that Mr Maamary said he and Ms Wilden experienced problems with the intimate aspect of their relationship, leading to their marriage to fail in early 2020.
Their intimacy had been fine for the first 10 months of the relationship, Ms Wilden told the court.
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