Sex offender Jarryd Hayne starts appeal process after spending first night in prison
Former NRL star Jarryd Hayne has been sentenced to more than five years' jail. Photo: AAP
Convicted sex offender and former NRL star Jarryd Hayne has lodged an appeal one day after being jailed for assaulting a Newcastle woman.
Hayne was on Thursday sentenced to a maximum of five years and nine months behind bars for sexually assaulting the woman on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.
The judge said Hayne knew the woman was not consenting but assaulted her anyway.
The ABC can reveal Hayne has lodged a Notice of Intention to Appeal in the NSW Supreme Court.
A jury in March found Hayne guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault which the victim said left her feeling “dirty, scared and ashamed”.
Hayne must serve a minimum of three years and eight months.
Jarryd Hayne married Amellia Bonnici earlier this year. Photo: AAP/Bianca De Marchi
In handing down her sentence, District Court Judge Helen Syme said: “The reliability and honesty of the victim’s evidence was tested at length and in my view, her reliability was not in doubt. She said no several times.”
“The use of force was such that the victim had no prospect of stopping him physically.
“He was at least twice her weight at 100 kilograms and an athlete at the top of his form.”
In a victim impact statement read out in Newcastle District Court on Thursday, the woman, who can’t be named, said she would never get over the pain and emotion of Hayne’s assault.
“I was flooded with emotions and incomprehensible feeling,” she said.
“Why didn’t you stop, [there were] so many questions were running through my head.
“I felt dirty and violated, you made me feel like an object and was looking straight through me.”
During the trial, the Crown alleged Hayne sexually assaulted the woman in her bedroom while her mother was also in the house, causing two injuries in the process, before leaving.
Hayne had been on a two-day buck’s weekend and exchanged flirty social media messages with the then-26-year-old woman for about two weeks before he went to her house.
His detour there on the way back to Sydney, the prosecutor would tell his criminal trial, was for “one thing and one thing only”.
Hayne denied two counts of sexual assault.