A juror involved in the conviction of footy star Jarryd Hayne on two counts of rape felt pressured into finding him guilty.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal one of the 12 jury members sent a note to the judge complaining they were being ‘aggressively’ treated and felt bullied by an ‘agenda’ to convict.
The juror sent the note at a crunch time in the deliberations when the jury was telling Judge Graham Turnbull, SC, they were unable to unanimously agree on a guilty verdict.
The emergence of the note comes as Hayne enjoyed his last day of freedom on Wednesday with his wife and children as he prepares to fight an application to be sent to jail as early as tomorrow.
Jarryd Hayne emerges on Wednesday just hours after being found guilty of rape and a day before he will be sentenced and likely taken of to prison for up to a maximum term of 14 years
On Wednesday Jarryd Hayne emerged with his wife Amellia Bonnici (above) and reported to Merrylands Police Station, a requirement three times a week while he is on bail
Daily Mail Australia understands Hayne will appeal his conviction on the grounds the verdict was unreasonable and did not reflect the evidence.
The disgraced former NRL star faces up to 14 years in jail after being found guilty on Tuesday afternoon of raping a woman at a home in Newcastle almost five years ago.
Hayne was pictured as he left his home in Merrylands, in western Sydney, with his wife Amellia Bonnici and daughters, aged 6 and one.
The NSW District Court jury of six men and six women sent a note to the court shortly before 12.30pm on Monday, saying they were struggling to reach a unanimous decision and were ‘seeking guidance on how to proceed’.
This caused the judge to give them a ‘Black direction’, which advises a jury which is unable to reach a verdict after deliberation to ‘fulfil the utilitarian objective of producing a verdict without putting undue pressure on jurors to change their minds’.
But in a separate note to the judge, one juror said they felt they were being pressured or bullied into an ‘agenda’ by other members of the jury panel.
Judge Turnbull informed prosecutors and defence counsel about the note, and urged the jurors to continue deliberations which had commenced on March 27.
Jarryd Hayne (above with his lawyers Margaret Cunneen and Lauren MacDougall during his rape trial) will appeal the conviction on the grounds ‘the verdict was unreasonable and did not reflect the evidence’
Jarryd Hayne and his wife Amellia Bonnici look grim as they exit the court after he was found guilty on Tuesday afternoon of two counts of rape
He told them: ‘I have the power to discharge you from giving a verdict but I should only do so if I am satisfied that there is no likelihood of genuine agreement being reached after further deliberation’.
The jury retired to consider their verdict after an 11-day trial – Hayne’s third – on two charges of sexual intercourse without consent.
Hayne, 35, had pleaded not guilty to raping a 26-year-old woman on September 30, 2018, when he was accused of assaulting her in in her bedroom in the Newcastle suburb of Fletcher.
Evidence during the trial said he assaulted her with his hand and mouth, making her bleed from the genitals, while he had a taxi waiting outside to take him home to Sydney on NRL grand final night.
On Tuesday morning, after more than 20 hours of deliberations, the judge told the jury: ‘If you are having trouble, you should send us a note, let us know’.
On Tuesday afternoon, the jury sent another note, which said they had taken another vote and ‘made progress’ but were ‘not at a unanimous decision’, and asked for clarification on whether ‘ignorance is a sufficient defence’.
The judge told the jury that the short answer was ‘no’, adding ‘in this case you must remember the burden of proof is on the Crown, and not the accused, and the accused does not have to prove anything.
‘He has given an explanation and I remind you, if you accept that explanation as true or possibly true, then that constitutes a reasonable doubt, and he is entitled to be acquitted.’
At 3.37pm on Tuesday, the jury returned a guilty verdict.
On Thursday, Hayne will be sentenced for up to a maximum term of 14 years, and the prosecution will file a detention application for Hayne, which will likely see him taken off to prison.
Hayne, whose first trial in 2020 ended in a hung jury, spent 11 months in prison after his second trial ended in conviction in March 2021, before being released in February 2022 after an appeal quashed the decision.
His lawyer Margaret Cunneen will oppose a detention application by the prosecution on Thursday and he is expected to launch an appeal on his latest conviction on the grounds of the verdict was unreasonable and did not reflect the evidence.
Margaret Cunneen said Hayne (pictured leaving Cooma prison last year after an earlier conviction was quashed) was ‘facing up courageously’ to the prospect of going back to jail
‘He’s very brave and he is confident he will be ultimately vindicated because he’s only ever told the truth,’ Ms Cunneen said of her client.
Regarding the probability of going to jail while an appeal is launched, Ms Cunneen said: ‘He’s facing up to it courageously. It won’t be for very long’.
‘Jarryd didn’t lie. He was ridiculously straightforward.’
Ms Cunneen said Hayne’s alleged victim had ‘curated and left things out’ in her account of what happened on the night in question.
After sending Hayne images via social media, she said that Hayne had arrived at the woman’s house.
When Hayne arrived, she ‘was on the bed face down trying to hide’ her eye, which was afflicted following a bout of meningitis.
Ms Cunneen said when the young woman ‘got annoyed about the taxi, (Hayne) said he’d paid $500 so he could stay as long as he liked .
‘He watched the footy and then thought, “I better go in there and be nice to her”.’ That was when the young woman said the sexual assaults took place.
