Jack de Belin, Callan Sinclair trial: Jury to return next week
The jury in Jack de Belin’s sex assault trial will be back next week to deliberate after failing to make a decision on the NRL forward’s guilt today.
Police & Courts
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The jury in Jack de Belin’s sex assault trial will be back next week to deliberate after failing to make a decision on the NRL forward’s guilt today.
De Belin, 29, and Sinclair, 23, have pleaded not guilty to raping a 19-year-old woman after a Wollongong pub crawl in 2018.
The pair maintain sex with the woman was consensual.
The jury consisting of five women and seven men will be back to deliberate on Monday at 9.30am.
Wollongong District Court judge Andrew Haesler finished his summary to the jury on Thursday morning after a three-and-a-half week trial.
Family and supporters of the pair spent the day waiting patiently in the court building after the jury went to deliberate at 10.30am.
The Dragons forward, 29, and Sinclair, 23, have pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated sexual assault, maintaining sex with the 19-year-old in December 2018 was consensual.
Judge Haesler told the court the jury had as long as they needed to decide the pair’s fate.
Yesterday he said: “When you’re out on verdict you should not feel you’re being rushed to verdict there is no magic time a juror takes to reach a verdict … you’ll have as long as you need.”
The woman told the court via video link in an earlier appearance she was sexually assaulted in a unit after a Christmas pub crawl.
The defendants have strenuously denied the allegations and stated the sex was entirely consensual.
The men told the court the woman consented to the anal, vaginal and oral sex, moaning and saying “yes” throughout.
She claimed they forced her and she was saying “no”. She also claimed she received bruising from de Belin leaning on her chest.
De Belin was charged after voluntarily attending the police station not long after the incident, due to hearing the woman’s claims.
Crown Prosecutor David Scully SC told the court earlier this week the woman was a “reliable” witness.
He said the pair had a “fundamental disconnect” between what they both believe happened that night.
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