- Jarryd Hayne is trying to overturn his rape conviction
- Waa is in jail after jury found ex-NRL star raped woman in 2018
- Lawyers will accuse the victim of deliberately withholding evidence
Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne’s latest attempt to overturn a rape conviction will be decided after his lawyers accused the victim of deliberately concealing evidence.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal will rule on Wednesday on whether Hayne was rightly jailed on charges of raping the woman on the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final.
The 36-year-old has spent the past year behind bars after a jury convicted him of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent in April 2023 after an earlier guilty finding was overturned on appeal.
Three separate criminal trials were told that the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, changed her mind about having sex with Hayne after realizing a taxi was waiting outside her house.
Hayne’s barrister, Tim Game SC, told a hearing in April that the woman had deleted messages between herself and Hayne which showed she had initially shown sexual interest in him.
NRL star Jarryd Hayne’s latest bid to overturn a rape conviction will be decided after his lawyers accused the victim of deliberately concealing evidence
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal will rule on Wednesday on whether Hayne (pictured, playing for Parramatta) was rightly jailed on charges of raping the woman on the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final
He argued that these and other messages deleted from the woman’s phone amounted to a deliberate concealment of the facts.
“In our case, it’s about large-scale concealment of evidence,” Game said.
‘Of course we say that concealment is the same as lying or deception.’
Georgina Wright SC, representing the Crown, told the same hearing that the woman had explained that she regularly deleted text messages and had not been selective about what was deleted to “piece the story together”.
Hayne’s defense team also argued that the woman should have been cross-examined about why she allegedly told police, “If that message gets out, I’m damned and he’ll go away.”
Judge Graham Turnbull, who oversaw Hayne’s third trial, refused requests to have the woman cross-examined on the statement, saying it had “almost infinite weight”.
In an appeal, Hayne’s lawyers argued that Judge Turnbull had erred in ruling that the complainant should not be forced to give further evidence because it resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
They further argued that the guilty verdicts were unreasonable and not supported by the evidence.
Hayne’s conviction followed a hung jury in his first trial in 2020 and an earlier appeal that overturned the 2021 guilty verdict from his second trial.
