A judge has said Jarryd Hayne was ‘fully aware’ his victim was not consenting when she sentenced him to five years and nine months in jail for raping the young woman in her bedroom.
The former NRL superstar was distraught as Judge Helen Syme handed down the verdict on Thursday afternoon at a Newcastle court.
The 33-year-old will be eligible for parole in three years and eight months over the attack from the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.
Judge Syme on Thursday said the former Parramatta Eels captain ‘refused to accept the verdict, shows no remorse and refuses to change his attitude towards sex or women’.
He was found guilty in March of two counts of sexual assault by a jury of seven men and five women during a retrial in Sydney.
Jarryd Hayne has been sentenced to five years and nine months in jail after raping a young woman on the way back from a grand final party
He was found not guilty of the two more serious charges of aggravated sexual assault without consent inflicting actual bodily harm.
‘She (the victim) has every right to feel safe from attack in the privacy of her home,’ the judge said.
‘The fact is she said no to the sexual activity the offender was forcing on her. The offender was fully aware the victim was not consenting and went ahead anyway.
‘I do not accept that he was not aware she was trying to push him away and physically resisting him.
‘I do not accept the offender did not know or did not hear the victim telling him she did not want to have sex with him.’
Judge Syme said the attack only ended when she started to bleed, and that Hayne had ignored her previous pleas for him to stop.
Jarryd Hayne proposed to Amellia Bonnici on Christmas Day and the couple married a month later
Hayne is seen outside court on March 22 with his wife Amellia Bonnici (pictured) before he was found guilty and sentenced to jail
‘He stopped not because she said to, but because he noticed the blood,’ she said.
‘He didn’t stop because he thought what he was doing is wrong, and he’s never accepted this.’
The judge said Hayne’s decision to ignore the woman’s pleas to stop when forcibly giving her oral and digital sexual intercourse only increased the objective seriousness of the crime.
Due to Hayne’s physical build, that being of a professional athlete, his victim stood no chance in trying to fight him off, the judge said.
Judge Syme said it was hard to see Hayne’s prospects of rehabilitation being regarded as high since he continues to maintain his innocence.
The woman who was then aged 26 read out a victim impact statement to the court detailing the ongoing trauma the attack has brought her.
Dressed in a black suit and tie, Hayne, 33, bowed his head in the witness box as the first guilty verdict to a rape charge was entered in March
She said she underwent flashbacks of the night whenever she came face to face with Hayne during the trial, and would never be the same again.
She said the former NRL star had left her feeling dirty and violated, and Hayne had seen her as an object.
‘You don’t owe somebody your body, nor should they expect it,’ the woman said.
‘My body remembers and my mind won’t let me forget.
‘This assault has changed me. It changed my direction and who I was. I don’t remember the last time I had a proper sleep.
‘I have spent countless hours crying, the feeling of violation and feeling dirty doesn’t go away. I have nightmares and flashbacks of his face looking right through me. Sometimes I can’t get out of bed.’
She also revealed she and her mother no longer live in their home because the trauma of what happened there was too much to bear.
Hayne was once regarded as one of the best players in the NRL but he will now spend the next three years in a prison cell
The woman said she no longer trusted anyone, pushed everyone away and ‘freaks out if I get close to anyone’.
The crown case against Hayne was he arrived drunk at the woman’s house in Newcastle on September 30, 2018 and stayed for about 45 minutes, committed two sex acts on her without her consent involving digital penetration and oral sex before causing two separate injuries to her genitalia before leaving.
The woman told the jury Hayne tried to kiss and touch her but when she said ‘no’ and ‘stop’ he pushed her head into the pillow, ripped off her trousers and attacked her.
Hayne claimed he knew the woman did not want to have sex with him after she realised he had a taxi waiting outside but she agreed to him performing oral sex on her to please her.
He said the woman’s injuries must have been caused when he accidentally cut her with his finger.
