Jarryd Hayne, a former Australian rugby league player, has been ordered to face trial for a fourth time in the same case after winning an appeal against his rape convictions.
A jury last year convicted the 36-year-old guilty of sexual assault; he was given a minimum three-year prison term.
He has continuously denied that he assaulted the unnamed lady in her bedroom, claiming that they had consensual intercourse. Mr. Hayne spent a short stint as an American football player in the NFL and was one of the most well-known players in Australia's National Rugby League (NRL).
The accused, who is 26 years old, testified in front of the New South Wales (NSW) District Court that Mr. Hayne and she had been corresponding on social media for two weeks prior to her residence in Newcastle, which is about two hours north of Sydney, being called to a bachelor party in September 2018.
She said that even when she told him to stop and "no," Mr. Hayne still pushed himself on her, leaving her bleeding. The state's highest court panel of three justices heard Mr. Hayne's appeal in April.
Two of the three judges decided on Wednesday that the trial judge erred in forbidding the lady from being cross-examined over specific text exchanges, which Mr. Hayne's legal team said suggested her assent. Justice Stephen Rothman declared that the verdict amounted to a miscarriage of justice and invalidated Mr. Hayne's convictions. After receiving bail, he will be let out of jail. The prosecutor's office stated in a statement that it would take the verdict into consideration and that any choices on a potential retrial would follow its policies.
The trial that took place last year was Mr. Hayne's third jury trial over the identical charges. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, and an appeal reversed the guilty judgment from his second trial.
As the judicial process has progressed, he has been imprisoned for a total of over two years, during which his accuser has been repeatedly made to testify and subjected to intense cross-examination.
Justice Deborah Sweeney said that she did not believe a fourth trial "would be in the interests of justice" in her written reasons.
Judge Rothman concurred, stating that because Mr. Hayne has already spent the majority of his non-parole sentence, a trial is "unlikely" to take place prior to its expiration. Mr. Hayne, who played 11 Tests for Australia, was the former captain of the Parramatta Eels and was twice named the National Rugby League's (NRL) player of the year. In 2015, at the pinnacle of his Australian career, he signed with the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL in the United States.
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