Former NRL player Jarryd Hayne has been jailed ahead of his sentencing hearing after being found guilty on two counts of rape.
Justice Richard Button sent Hayne into custody at the New South Wales supreme court on Friday.
Hayne had “remarkably” remained on bail after the 35-year-old was found guilty on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent earlier in April, the judge said.
Hayne sexually assaulted a woman with his hands and mouth after attending her home on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final. The woman cannot be identified.
The trial heard that 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.
After the assault, the pair cleaned blood off of themselves in the woman’s en suite and Hayne continued to Sydney.
Brought before the supreme court for a bail review on Friday, Button said it is “inevitable” Hayne will be jailed, the question was when.
“It is proven that Mr Hayne is a man who sexually assaulted a woman,” Button said.
Hayne’s barrister, Margaret Cunneen SC, argued there were “special” or “exceptional” circumstances that required the bail he has complied with for more than four years be continued until he is sentenced in May.
At that time, he could almost immediately be classified as “a prisoner in need of protection”, rather than placed on remand with other prisoners awaiting sentence.
Hayne would be held in “oppressive” and isolated conditions while on remand, his barrister said.
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 remain 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, she 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.