Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne’s latest bid to overturn a conviction for rape will be decided after his lawyers accused the victim of deliberately concealing evidence.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal will deliver a ruling today over whether Hayne was rightfully jailed on charges of raping the woman on the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final.
The 36-year-old has spent the last year behind bars after a jury convicted him of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent in April 2023 after a previous guilty finding was overturned on appeal.
Three separate criminal trials were told the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, changed her mind about having sex with Hayne after realising he had a taxi waiting outside her house.
Hayne’s barrister, Tim Game SC, told an appeal hearing in April that the woman deleted messages between herself and Hayne that demonstrated she had initially shown a sexual interest in him.
He argued those and other messages deleted from the woman’s phone amounted to deliberate concealment of the facts.
“On our case, it is concealment of evidence on a large scale,” Game said.
“We say concealment, of course, is the same as lying or deception.”
Georgina Wright SC, representing the Crown, told the same hearing the woman had explained she regularly deleted text messages and had not been selective about what was deleted to “curate the narrative”.
Hayne’s defence team also argued the woman should have been cross-examined on why she allegedly told police, “If those message get out, I’m f—– and he will get off.”
Judge Graham Turnbull, who oversaw Hayne’s third trial, refused requests for the woman to be cross-examined on the statement, saying it carried “almost infinitesimal weight”.
In a notice to appeal, Hayne’s lawyers argued Judge Turnbull erred in determining the complainant should not be compelled to give further evidence, saying 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 a previous appeal overturning the 2021 guilty verdict from his second trial.
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