The jury in former NRL star Jarryd Hayne’s rape trial has been unable to succeed in unanimous verdicts on two charges of aggravated sexual abuse .
The jury sent a note to Newcastle district court judge Peter Whitford on Friday afternoon stating it had been unable to agree on a choice after considering all the evidence.
Whitford said he would give the jurors longer to re-examine the matters where they were divided . He gave them the choice of continuous deliberations on Friday afternoon or returning on Monday.
The jury, which asked for a transcript of the whole two-week trial on Thursday afternoon, elected to return next week.
Former code-hopper Hayne, 32, has pleaded acquitted to 2 charges of aggravated sexual abuse recklessly inflicting actual bodily harm.
Prosecutors previously argued Hayne arrived drunk at the alleged victim’s house on the outskirts of Newcastle about 9pm on 30 September 2018 – the night of the NRL grand final.
He stayed for about 45 minutes, committed two sex acts on her and caused two lacerations to her genitalia before leaving, the Crown alleged. The woman’s mother was within the house watching the grand final at the time.
The alleged victim, now aged 28, said she became angry when she realised Hayne had a taxi waiting outside and she or he told him they might not be having sex but he ignored her. She said when Hayne tried to kiss and touch her and she or he told him “no” and “stop”, he pushed her face down into the pillow, ripped her pants off and attacked her.
The woman suffered two lacerations to her vagina which Hayne testified must are accidentally caused by him cutting her together with his finger.
Hayne said he knew the lady didn’t want to possess sex but he decided to offer her head to please her together with her consent. He said she never said “no” or “stop”.
The former Parramatta Eels star – who also played rugby sevens for Fiji and within the NFL within the us – had paid a taxi driver $550 to require him home to Sydney after a two-day bucks party for rugby league player Kevin Naiqama in Newcastle when he decided to pop into the woman’s home.
Prosecutor Brian Costello said the case might be summed up by what the lady told the jury: “No means fucking no.”
“I know exactly what happened then does he,” the lady said in her evidence.
Costello said Hayne had left a gaggle of his footy mates watching the 2018 NRL grand final for one plain, obvious reason – to possess sex with a lady he had never met. He said Hayne believed he had been promised sex after exchanging flirty messages on social media with the lady .
The prosecutor said Hayne had been rough, forceful and inconsiderate trying to urge what he had come for when he attacked the lady , injuring her quite significantly.
He said Hayne’s claim the woman’s mood changed during the night to the extent she was willing to interact in sexual intercourse with him was “just fanciful”.
The defence barrister, Phillip Boulten SC, previously told the court Hayne was guilty of bad sex, not rape. Boulten said simply because the lady said “no” after the taxi incident didn’t mean the shutters had come down on friendship and intimacy.
He said the lady was a willing participant within the sexual intercourse after they both kissed but it all went terribly wrong when she started bleeding. Boulten said the woman’s injuries might explain why she was making the sexual abuse accusations against Hayne and had convinced herself she wasn’t consenting.
The defence barrister said Hayne wasn’t hooked in to having sex with the lady and was actually a touch ambivalent about it, given he spent most of that Sunday with the boys from the bucks party, getting to paintball then on a tour rather than getting to see her.
“Jarryd Hayne wasn’t out of control and he wasn’t incapable of resisting sexual allure,” Boulten said. the lady later sent text messages to a girlfriend saying she thought Hayne had bitten her vagina and she or he felt violated.
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