Former NRL player Jarryd Hayne has been found guilty of sexual assault.

This post deals with sexual assault and might be triggering for some readers. 

Former NRL player Jarryd Hayne has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in her Newcastle home in 2018.

The sexual assault took place on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final.

The Crown had argued the former State of Origin player felt entitled to sex when he went to the then-26-year-old woman's Newcastle home. He had left his friends drinking at a bucks party and also missed watching his old teammates in the NRL grand final that evening.

The jury of seven men and five women found Hayne not guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent inflicting actual bodily harm, but did find him guilty of two alternative counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

Jarryd Hayne has been found guilty of sexual assault. Image: Getty.

The woman testified Hayne was "rough, forceful and inconsiderate," despite her protests of "no" and "no Jarryd," and pushed her face into the pillow before ripping her jeans off.

The 33-year-old had denied assaulting the woman, saying the incident was consensual. The former Parramatta Eels player testified that the woman had become "filthy" after finding out a taxi was waiting for him outside her home. 

“I knew she didn’t want to have sex,” Hayne said in court. “I thought I would just please her.”

The Crown argued Hayne had no reasonable grounds for believing the woman would have consented to any sexual activity that evening.

The assault lasted for about 30 seconds before the woman started bleeding from her genitals.

The woman suffered two lacerations to her vagina which Hayne testified must have been accidentally caused by him cutting her with his finger.

"No, means f***ing no."

The first trial resulted in a hung jury in December 2020, after the jury of eight men and four women were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

A lot of the evidence in the second trial was given by replaying recordings from the first trial.

At one point during the previous trial, the woman broke down in the witness stand when she was questioned about a series of messages she exchanged with a friend before Hayne arrived at her house on the night she was sexually assaulted.

"It's just irrelevant," the woman said in the witness box. "No, means f***ing no."

When she was asked to take a break, she walked past Hayne in court and said: "You’re a f---ing piece of shit." This exchange was not replayed in the second trial.

After being convicted, Hayne will now be sentenced at Newcastle in early May. He has been granted bail on the condition he hand over a $50,000 surety.

The judge said a jail term was "inevitable".

- With AAP

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.