Why Jarryd Hayne could still be in big trouble for allegedly raping a woman

• Former NRL star will not face fourth trial for alleged rape
• Appeal against guilty verdict successful
• Was released from prison earlier this month

Football star Jarryd Hayne will not face a fourth criminal trial for allegedly raping a woman after a successful appeal. However, he still faces a civil lawsuit with potentially serious consequences if he is found guilty.

On Tuesday, the New South Wales Attorney-General confirmed that the former Parramatta and Gold Coast NRL player and his accuser will not be forced to face further criminal proceedings.

The first trial for his alleged attack on the woman in her home in Newcastle, New South Wales, on the night of the 2018 NRL final ended in a hung jury. He successfully appealed his conviction in the second trial, paving the way for the now-overturned guilty verdict in the third trial.

However, his accuser filed a civil suit over the alleged sexual assault in August 2021 after he was convicted in the second trial – and with the dismissal of the criminal charges against him now a mere formality, the matter will be heard in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

The trial was adjourned in September 2021 pending the outcome of Haynes’ appeal against his first conviction.

The amount of damages sought in the lawsuit has not been disclosed, but if the star’s plaintiff is successful, any fine would come at a time when Hayne is suffering from severe financial problems.

His three trials resulted in enormous legal fees, with the cost of his defense estimated at up to $13,000 per day.

According to insiders, lawyer Phillip Boulten SC was charging $9,900 per day and barrister Penny Musgrove was charging $3,000 per day.

As a result, Hayne was forced to sell a large portion of his $5 million real estate portfolio – and a fraudster is said to have taken a huge sum of money from him while in prison.

The 36-year-old was reportedly scammed out of $780,000 worth of Bitcoins by one of his fellow inmates at Cooma Correctional Centre by convincing the star to invest with him.

Civil cases are tried by a judge rather than a jury, and much lower standards of proof are required to obtain a conviction than in a criminal case.

While in criminal cases the offence must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, in civil cases a defendant can be held liable on the basis of probabilities. This was the case, for example, when Bruce Lehrmann was found guilty on the basis of probabilities of raping Brittany Higgins in his libel action against Channel Ten.

This is not the first time Hayne has faced a civil lawsuit for allegedly sexually abusing a woman.

In August 2019, he settled out of court for an undisclosed amount after a woman alleged that he raped her while he played for the NFL team San Francisco 49ers in 2015.

Shortly after his first rape conviction in September 2021, Haynes’ legal team announced how they would defend him against the lawsuit brought by his Australian accuser.

His lawyer, David Baran, said the case was merely a “reenactment of the allegations made in the criminal trial” and said Haynes’ legal team had “identified a number of deficiencies in the complaint.”

“The entire plea is embarrassing and futile,” Baran said, adding that Hayne will defend himself by repeating the claim he has used in his criminal trials, namely that the woman consented to have sex with him on September 30, 2018.

In all three criminal trials against Hayne, it was found that the woman changed her mind about having sex with Hayne after she realized that a taxi was waiting for her outside her house.

In a text message to Hayne after the encounter, the woman, whose identity cannot be verified for legal reasons, wrote: “I know I’ve talked so much about sex and stuff like that, but I didn’t want to do it after I knew the taxi was waiting for you.”

“I thought you at least stayed? It really hurts me. I told Mom you had a nosebleed.”

Haynes’s response was, “Go see the doctor tomorrow.”

Prosecutors alleged that Hayne pulled down the woman’s pants, was rough and violent during the sexual contact, and left her bleeding. Hayne claimed the sex was completely consensual.