Ex-NRL star Hayne sent back to jail on sexual assault charges, eligible for parole in 2025
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Former National Rugby League star Jarryd Hayne is expected to remain in jail until at least 2025 after being found guilty on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
Former National Rugby League star Jarryd Hayne is expected to remain in jail until at least 2025 after being found guilty on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
Hayne denied sexually assaulting a woman in her Newcastle home, north of Sydney, in 2018 and faced three trials on the charges.
On Friday, he was jailed for a total of four years and nine months with a non-parole period of three years. With time already served, he will be eligible for parole in May 2025.
The 35-year-old Hayne had a long career in the NRL between 2006 and 2018, mostly playing for Parramatta, and represented Australia and Fiji at international level. He also had a short stint with the NFL's San Francisco 49ers in 2015 and made an unsuccessful bid to play for Fiji in the Olympic debut of Rugby Sevens in 2016.
Hayne's first trial in 2020 ended when the jury was discharged after failing to deliver a majority verdict. He was convicted at the second trial, in 2021, and served nine months of a sentence of five years and nine months before he successfully appealed and was released ahead of a third trial.
He was found guilty last month in the New South Wales state District Court and released on bail, pending sentencing, for 10 days before the Supreme Court sent him to jail on April 14.
In sentencing Friday, Judge Graham Turnbull said Hayne overwhelmed the woman "in an inherently unequal contest . . . to achieve some sexual gratification."
