Birthday boy Jarryd Hayne gives jail a clean pair of heels

The joy on Jarryd Hayne’s face was clear as he walked out of Cooma Correctional Centre on his 34th birthday.

Former NRL star Jarryd Hayne walks free from Cooma Correctional Centre, in southern NSW, on Tuesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Jarryd Hayne, the once celebrated “Hayne Plane”, is a free man, at least for the time being.

The joy on the former rugby league superstar’s face was clearly visible as he walked out of Cooma Correctional Centre on Tuesday – which also happened to be his 34th birthday.

Carrying an Aldi shopping bag and a cardboard box filled with belongings – including some shoes perched precariously on top – the ex-NRL footballer was free for the first time in nine months.

A friend greeted an emotional Hayne at the prison gates, where he refused to answer reporters’ ques­tions before being whisked away in a 4WD to be reunited with his wife Amellia Bonnici and their two children, one of whom was born while he was in jail.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, the former Parramatta Eels star, dressed in his prison greens, fronted a court in the Downing Centre in Sydney via video link. There, his lawyer Ramy Qutami was successful in his bid to ­secure bail for Hayne, who was found guilty of two charges of sexually assaulting a woman on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.

Jarryd Hayne greets friends outside Cooma Correctional Centre on Tuesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Those convictions were quashed in the Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday. Three judges found there was an error with ­directions given to the jury, as well as an error in a pre-trial ruling.

Hayne is now expected to face a retrial in what is a radical turnaround for the Dally M medallist, who had been facing a minimum of three years and eight months ­behind bars.

Hayne had spent the past nine months in the Cooma Correctional Centre but on Tuesday he was granted bail on 15 conditions, including that he live with his wife in Sydney’s west and pay a $20,000 surety. Hayne has also been told he must report to Merrylands Police Station three days a week and not contact the alleged victim or any witnesses.

On Tuesday, NSW District Court judge Christopher O’Brien said Hayne’s retrial could go ahead as early as mid-October, although he also added it might not begin until next year.

Hayne’s matter will be mentioned again on Friday to fix a retrial date. Meanwhile, NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC will decide whether a third trial will even go ahead. She is expected to factor in the cost, Hayne’s alleged victim’s mental health, and the psychological implications of another trial.

Hayne’s first trial in 2020 resulted in a hung jury. The second trial led to Hayne’s conviction in March last year.

From the outset, he has vehemently maintained his innocence. Out the front of the courtroom last March – after he was found guilty – Hayne said: “I would rather go to jail knowing I spoke the truth than be a free man living a lie.”

On that day, Hayne said he would appeal – and now he has been successful.

In court last year, Hayne had sought to argue that the highly sexualised Instagram flirtation he had conducted with a 26-year-old Newcastle woman led him to believe that she would consent to sex even when he arrived at her house late one evening for their first meeting, drunk and having asked a taxi driver to wait outside.

The woman’s evidence was resolute: she might have told Hayne she imagined “f..king” him, but she did not want it to happen like that.

She described Hayne ripping off her clothing and performing digital and oral sex on her, even after she said no. She described how, afterwards, Hayne had washed blood from his face while she stood in a shower, watching bloody water running down the drain.

The woman said she was not sure “whether he bit me or cut me” on the genitals.

Hayne testified that he must have accidentally cut her with his ­finger.

The matter may be heard in court again before long, but for now Hayne is a free man.