Jarryd Hayne went to a woman’s Newcastle home thinking the “best-case scenario” would be to have sex but,when she did not want to,the former NRL player says he instead performed sexual acts on her,a court has heard.
Hayne,35,sat in the witness box of the NSW District Court on Monday afternoon and Tuesday as hours of his recorded evidence from a previous trial were played to the Sydney jury,during which he said the woman never told him to stop.
Jarryd Hayne arrives with his legal team on Tuesday.Nick Moir
Hayne has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual intercourse without consent after the incident involving a 26-year-old woman at her home on September 30,2018,when he is alleged to have assaulted her with his hands and mouth and left her bleeding from the genitals.
In his evidence,the former Parramatta Eels player said he had been in a $550 taxi from Newcastle to Sydney after a bucks’ weekend of golf,drinking,clubbing and paintball.
He said he told the woman,whom he had talked to for almost a fortnight,that he could “pop in on the way” if she lived near the freeway,and told the driver he had to pick up a bag from the house.
Former NRL player Jarryd Hayne has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault on the first day of a trial.
Asked by his then barrister what he intended to do at the woman’s house,Hayne “wasn’t sure”.
“I knew she was keen,I knew she had been sending me flirty messages,” he said. “Best-case scenario would obviously be having sex with her;worst case I would introduce myself and that was it.”
Hayne said when they met he thought she was nervous,he felt awkward and had played a couple of,to break the ice and “make her feel comfortable”.
“I think she got up and looked through the blinds,” he said. “I think she asked[about the taxi] and I kind of just stared ... answered in my head,‘You knew I was going to Sydney,like why,what’s the confusion?’”
He agreed the woman had said something along the lines of,“Did you think you were just going to come here and have sex with me?” and he had more or less replied,“up to you,really,whatever”.
Hayne said the taxi driver had knocked on the door,he told the driver he was still waiting for his bag,he returned to the bedroom then watched the last minute or so of the NRL grand final in the lounge room with the woman’s mother. Hayne said at some point he broke a slat of the bed with his knees.
He said he lay next to the woman,kissed her and “she kissed me back”. Hayne said he “might’ve caressed her face”,then put his hand on her vagina outside her pants as he thought she would like it.
“We’d flirted and all that sort of stuff before,I felt ... in the moment it was fine,” he said,adding that he “decided to grab her hand and put it near my penis”.
Hayne said he had tried to put his hands down the woman’s pants,but they were tight,and they had both tried to take them off. He said she wriggled to the end of the bed and “hopped to get them off”,then said she lay on the bed,she unclipped her bodysuit,and he digitally penetrated her.
“I knew she didn’t want to have sex,I thought I’d just please her and that was it,” Hayne said.
Asked whether she responded in any way,and whether she had said “stop”,he said,“no”.
Hayne said he then performed cunnilingus but was shocked and jumped up to find blood on his hand and lip. Asked whether he had intended to hurt the woman,he replied,“no”.
He said he told her “obviously” his finger had cut her,it was an accident and she would be OK. Hayne said when the woman got in the shower,“that’s the first sign that she experienced pain”.
He said he told her to go to the doctor if it remained painful. Hayne denied that he had bitten her.
“Did she ever tell you to stop the sexual acts you were performing?” his barrister asked in the recorded evidence.
“No,” Hayne replied.
The court heard the woman and Hayne exchanged a number of messages after the incident,including her telling him,he “should’ve just stopped when I said so”.
Hayne said he replied she was “starting to sound suss” and told the court he had been “fuming” as “she was starting to make up something that wasn’t true”.
Under cross-examination,the Crown prosecutor suggested to Hayne:“What you wanted was sex,and you wanted it the quicker,the better because the taxi was out the front and the meter was ... running.”
Asked in the recording,“What do you say to that?” Hayne replied,“I don’t agree with your opinion.”
The trial continues.
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