Jarryd Hayne is too famous and his crime has attracted too much attention for him to spend a month with other criminals awaiting their fate after he was found guilty on two rape charges, his lawyer has convinced a judge.
Hayne will remain on bail until a sentencing hearing on May 8, Judge Graham Turnbull ruled on Thursday afternoon.
The 35-year-old former NRL star was escorted out of Downing Centre by sheriffs into a black Audi Q7 which took off from the Sydney court precinct at 5pm.
It had taken all day but Hayne’s barrister Margaret Cunneen SC convinced the judge there were “special” or “exceptional” circumstances to delay Hayne entering custody, as required under recent changes to the bail act.
He was found guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent on Tuesday after sexually assaulting a woman on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.
Ms Cunneen called Hayne’s wife, Amelia Bonnici, to the witness box in the NSW District Court on Thursday.
She cried when asked if the couple, married since 2021, had three children.
She was asked what the next few weeks would mean for her and her family without her husband.
“I can’t even put that into words,” she said.
The two-time Dally M Medal winner needs to be around to support and physically protect his family as they move out of Sydney before he returns to jail, Ms Cunneen told the court.
“It would be so oppressive to take this man from his family while those arrangements are made,” she said.
The woman he assaulted in her suburban Newcastle bedroom cannot be identified.
A taxi waited outside as he played the woman songs on a laptop and watched the end of the grand final with her mother before performing non-consensual oral and digital sex on the woman for about 30 seconds.
They then cleaned blood off themselves and Hayne continued on his journey to Sydney.
Hayne cannot enter Newcastle under the conditions of his bail, which Ms Cunneen argued should be continued due to “unrelenting media pressure” on her famous client and the need to support his family.
“This particular offender would be a target in the general prison population,” she said.
“He’s going to jail,” Judge Turnbull clarified.
“My problem at the moment is he’s not going in as a sentenced prisoner, he’s going in as a remand prisoner.”
He was persuaded Hayne would be vulnerable if placed on remand in prison because he would not immediately be classified as a prisoner in need of protection.
Crown prosecutor John Sfinas said people were remanded in custody before sentencing all the time.
“All it comes down to is the offender is a high-profile footballer,” Mr Sfinas said.
The small cells at Parklea, built to keep bikies separated around the time of the 1984 Milperra Massacre, would likely be Hayne’s accommodation for weeks until he was sentenced, properly classified and likely moved to a more protected jail such as the Cooma Correctional Centre that last housed him, the judge said.
“The only reason he would be there is … because he’s Jarryd Hayne,” he said.
Prior to being moved to Cooma when he served nine months of a previous sentence following a 2021 verdict overturned on appeal, Hayne quickly became a target in prison, his lawyer submitted.
The trial beginning in March was Hayne’s third on charges laid in November 2018.
The jury in the first trial was discharged after being unable to reach a verdict.
© AAP 2023
