Found guilty by a jury of committing two “extremely grave sexual offences”, Jarryd Hayne was “remarkably” still on bail 10 days later, a judge said as he sent him to jail.
Justice Richard Button revoked the disgraced former NRL star’s bail in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
Hayne, 35, has been jailed ahead of sentencing after being found guilty earlier in April on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
He sexually assaulted a woman with his hands and mouth at her home on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.
She cannot be identified.
A taxi Hayne paid $550 to drive him to Sydney following a bucks weekend waited outside the suburban Newcastle home while he played the woman songs on a laptop and watched the end of the grand final as her mother sat in the living room.
Following the assault, the pair cleaned blood off themselves in her ensuite and Hayne continued to Sydney, his third trial heard.
Hayne walked out of court escorted by sheriffs into a waiting Audi following a District Court bail review, two days after a jury returned guilty verdicts.
He will leave the Supreme Court in a Corrective Services truck on Friday.
Supporters who attended did not comment as sheriffs forged a path through waiting media outside Sydney’s King St courthouse following the bail revocation.
Justice Button said Hayne would inevitably be sentenced to jail, as it was proven he sexually assaulted a woman.
His legal team conceded that point but argued it should not happen yet.
Hayne’s barrister Margaret Cunneen SC submitted, as required under recent legal changes, there were “special” or “exceptional” circumstances requiring the bail he has complied with for more than four years be continued until he is sentenced.
Then he can be almost immediately classified as a prisoner in need of protection, rather than placed on remand with other prisoners awaiting sentence.
He would be held in “oppressive” and isolated conditions while on remand, for his own safety.
Hayne’s crime has attracted a level of attention similar to a high-profile murder, out of proportion with the gravity of the two sexual offences he was found guilty of, she said.
Many details of the case remained unknown to the general public.
“There was a closed court for evidence, as there should be,” Ms Cunneen said.
However, it meant a “baying mob” had become involved in a “toxic” social media campaign in response to his crimes, committed over 30 seconds by someone with no other criminal history, she said.
“Mr Hayne suffers from the default position he is a sex offender of the most debased and worst kind,” she said.
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield said some of the posts were years old.
The restricted conditions required by his need for protection were no different from others in protective custody or isolation for various reasons, Mr Hatfield said.
Many offenders have young families whose lives are disrupted by them entering custody.
“It is not by itself special or exceptional such that it would justify being released on bail,” he said.
Hayne previously spent more than nine months in custody before an earlier guilty verdict was overturned, requiring the third trial, and the resumption of a prison term.
“To recommence it with something as oppressive as 25 days in isolation, represents something that is exceptional,” Ms Cunneen said.
The judge was not convinced.
“The fact is, all prisons are inherently places of deprivation of liberty,” Justice Button said, before revoking Hayne’s bail.
“Mr Hayne is a person who committed two extremely grave sexual offences.
“Remarkably, in my respectful opinion, in that context, Mr Hayne has remained at liberty since then.”
Hayne faces sentencing on May 8.
© AAP 2023
