EX NRL STAR JAILED AFTER BID FOR FREEDOM FAILS
Jarryd Hayne has been jailed after a bid to remain on bail before his sentencing for rape was denied. The 35-year-old disgraced former NRL star hugged his crying wife before he was taken into custody by court sheriffs today when Crown prosecutors succeeded in having his bail revoked in the NSW Supreme Court. Hayne had been allowed to remain on bail since he was found guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent earlier in April after a judge found he could be "vulnerable" in custody ahead of sentencing on May 8. Justice Richard Button said on Friday Hayne was "remarkably" still on bail after being found guilty and it was "inevitable" the 35-year-old will be jailed. "It is proven that Mr Hayne is a man who sexually assaulted a woman," Button said. The question was when. Hayne's barrister Margaret Cunneen SC argued 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 be 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. Hayne's crime has attracted an unprecedented amount of attention, more akin to a high-profile murder, and out of proportion with the actual gravity of the two sexual offences he has been 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," 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, Cunneen said. "Mr Hayne suffers from the default position he is a sex offender of the most debased and worst kind," she said. The "terrifying" posts also reach the prison population, 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, 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," Cunneen said. The judge was not convinced. "The fact is, all prisons are inherently places of deprivation of liberty," he said. "If Mr Hayne should otherwise be in custody, that circumstance should hardly stand in the way of it," Button said, before revoking Hayne's bail. 9News understands he will be taken to Silverwater Prison and will remain there until he is sentenced on May 8. Hayne faced a third trial and spent nine months in custody following an earlier guilty verdict that was overturned on appeal due to "profoundly wrong" legal directions given to the jury before it deliberated. The jury in the first trial was discharged without reaching a verdict. Hayne was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman with his hands and mouth after attending 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 of themselves in the woman's ensuite and Hayne continued to Sydney, the trial heard. Source: NineNews.com.au
Published on
April 14, 2023
