Jarryd Hayne’s accuser ‘curated’ allegations against him, jury told
The jury, who will soon have to decide the fate of former NRL star Jarryd Hayne, have been told the alleged victim ‘curated’ her allegations.
A woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by Jarryd Hayne “curated evidence to support herself” and “didn’t say no” during a fleeting encounter with the former NRL star, a jury has been told.
Defence barrister Margaret Cunneen SC addressed the jury in her closing address on Friday as the two-week NSW District Court trial against the 35-year-old Dally M winner begins to wrap up.
Mr Hayne has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault without consent, with the jury hearing more than eight days of evidence.
Mr Hayne denies sexually assaulting the woman at her home on Newcastle’s outskirts in September 2018, on the night of the NRL grand final, claiming they engaged in consensual sexual acts.
The former footy star is accused of pulling off the woman’s pants before allegedly performing oral and digital sexual acts on her without her consent, causing cuts and substantial bleeding.
The evidence concluded in the former NSW and Parramatta full-back’s retrial on Thursday, with closing submissions from both the Crown and defence taking place on Friday.
DEFENCE CLOSING ADDRESS
Ms Cunneen told the court it is Mr Hayne’s evidence that the woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by him “doesn’t say no at all”.
“She is curating the evidence to support herself in this matter,” she told the jury.
“You might be very concerned that with this crafting of the evidence, does that affect your assessment of her capacity to fill in the blanks, or leave material out or to make the evidence that she thinks will assist herself in this case?”
The woman and the Crown prosecution have argued that while she had sent him sexually suggestive messages via social media, the first time that they met at her Fletcher home – which she shared with her mother – she was not consenting to sexual intercourse.
She said she refused to consent because he had a cab waiting in her front yard, just outside her bedroom window, which he had paid $550 to ferry him from a buck’s party to Sydney where he was booked in to attend a midnight event.
Ms Cunneen told the jury there were two “phases” to the night in question.
She told the court that Mr Hayne arrived at the house at 9.07pm and left 46 minutes later, but the sexual activity did not occur until 9.26pm in the final 27 minutes of the visit.
“If Mr Hayne was there for one thing and one thing only, why were there no moves in the first 20 minutes?” she said to the jury.
“If he was hellbent on sex with this woman, why didn’t he rush there all day?”
“They kissed and touched and he tried to please her and tried to make up for her initial anger in the first phase. There were no ‘no’s’ and no ‘don’t’s.”
She told the jury they needed to critically analyse the 27 minutes in “phase two”.
“He’s in there for 27 minutes, while showers are taken, while explanations are made … he doesn’t rush off in the boorish way that has been described,” Ms Cunneen told the jury.
“Ladies and gentlemen time doesn’t lie and the most important timing in this case is the amount of time Mr Hayne was at the address.”
Ms Cunneen told the jury it was clear why the woman was upset.
It is the defence case the woman was not upset because he “forced himself” on her, but rather because Mr Hayne wouldn’t stay the night with her.
She told the court the police were “never aware” of communications the woman had with two people in the days leading up to the alleged incident.
Ms Cunneen said it was an area of evidence the “police had no idea about” until earlier court proceedings.
“Mr Hayne was charged, the criminal justice process was taking place from 2018 as the productive years of his career ebbed away,” she said.
“A couple of years later it is found that this chronology that we have here was originally much shorter in three very distinct respects.”
She said the police never knew about communications the woman had with another man, which indicated her “frame of mind”
“You can see in the end, she deliberately curated the material that she gave to the police,” Ms Cunneen said.
“If Mr Hayne had committed these dreadful crimes, why would she be deleting any of these messages?”
CROWN CLOSING ADDRESS
In the Crown’s closing address, Mr Sfinas said the woman did “certain acts” which were consistent with demonstrating she was not consenting during a fleeting encounter at her home.
He told the jury in terms of demonstrating a lack of consent, it’s separated into words and actions.
“The Crown says the complainant in this matter said words and made actions,” he said.
The jury was told the woman held up her pants when Mr Hayne tried to remove them, while saying “no” and “stop” and resisting Mr Hayne.
She had also texted her friend in the hours following the alleged incident, saying: “I feel like I let it happen to myself by not screaming at him.”
“You might think trying to hold up her pants is an act, moving away from someone, being pushed and trying to push back against it,” Mr Sfinas said.
“They are actions, so while she says here, ‘I feel like I let it happen to myself’, the Crown says she did actually do certain acts which are consistent with demonstrating resistance.”
Mr Sfinas told the court the woman had always been “forthright” about her intentions with Mr Hayne.
In the beginning of his address, Mr Sfinas told the jury they were asked by Ms Cunneen to view the alleged victim’s evidence “through a prism that she embellished and lied to police”.
He told the court: “It is the Crown submission that she did not lie. She did not exaggerate and she did not embellish.”
Mr Sfinas asked the jury to accept the woman’s evidence, saying she was forthright about her original intentions when texting Mr Hayne in the weeks leading up to the alleged incident.
“She didn’t diminish, she didn’t minimise, she didn’t try to make herself look better,” he said.
“Yes she was sexually interested and sexually attracted … she wasn’t that desperate to meet him.”
The jury was told the woman was “open” to the possibility of sex with Mr Hayne but then it diminished when she realised there was a taxi waiting for the former NRL star outside.
Mr Sfinas said this was the “defining moment” for the woman as she felt like she was simply a “diversion”.
“She realises he didn’t intend on staying too long given a taxi was waiting for him and hurrying him up,” he said.
The court heard the woman did not initially report the matter to police because she was scared about what could happen to her.
In a message to a friend, the court was told she wrote: “I’m too scared to report it, he would have the money to ruin me and the last thing I need is my life in the public eye.”
The Crown said it was compelling evidence because at the time the alleged incident occurred, the woman said she wasn’t sure what had even happened.
Mr Sfinas said the woman wasn’t sure she had been digitally penetrated.
“It was at a time she did not want to go to police, it significantly informs her authenticity,” he said.
“You might think these actions are not consistent with someone who prepares to lie, embellish, exaggerate or mislead.”
The court was told the taxi was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Mr Sfinas read to the court some of the woman’s prerecorded evidence in the trial.
When asked how she felt after the taxi driver knocked on the door, the woman said “like absolute crap”.
“I felt like it was obvious what he wanted, I felt sad and stupid for flirting with him at the start,” she said.
“There was no way in hell I was going to touch him … I was angry, I was hurt, I was sad, I felt like in my mind I thought this could one day, maybe turn into something so when I worked out he only wanted (sex) I felt crap.”
In the final 25 minutes of his closing address, Mr Sfinas said Mr Hayne lied to both the alleged victim and the taxi driver, saying neither would be “happy about the situation”.
The court was previously told that Mr Hayne did not respond to the woman when she questioned him about why a taxi was waiting for him.
Mr Sfinas said the lack of response was a “sinking feeling of being found out”.
He said Mr Hayne also lied to the taxi driver, saying he was at the woman’s house to “pick up a bag”.
“He wanted both to remain none the wiser,” Mr Sfinas told the court.
“The question of sex, which was up in the air, needed to be answered sooner rather than later.
“If you accept the complainant’s version of the accused manhandling her, you might think that was born out of frustration because things weren’t going quickly enough.”
Mr Sfinas told the court Mr Hayne’s version of events was implausible.
He told the jury that Mr Hayne’s version was he did what he did to “pleasure the woman”.
“He wanted to give pleasure to someone whose letterbox served as a stand for his half-finished drink,” Mr Sfinas said.
“He wanted to pleasure someone who was filthy, in his words, that a taxi was waiting.
“He wanted to pleasure someone who was wigged out … he wanted to pleasure someone who said they weren’t having sex.”
The defence closing address continues before Judge Graham Turnbull on Monday.
