Disgraced NRL star Jarryd Hayne has been seen out with his wife spending what could be his last hours of freedom, before prosecutors seek to lock him up for his rape crimes tomorrow.
The 35-year-old ex football player looked apprehensive during a visit to Merrylands shopping centre in western Sydney about lunchtime on Thursday. He was not far from the police station where he has been reporting since his bail was extended last week.
Last Friday, NSW District Court Judge Graham Turnbull SC permitted Hayne to remain on bail to help his family get sorted before his fate is sealed on May 8. However, the Director of Public Prosecutions applied this week for a higher court to overturn the ruling and put him behind bars.
Hayne was dressed in a green hoodie, cap and sweat pants and carried his youngest child, while his wife Amellia Bonnici looked relaxed in jeans and a yellow t-shirt as she carried a small white plastic bag and wallet.
Hayne will again face Justice Richard Button in the Supreme Court on Friday for an application to send the Dally M winner to prison. If prosecutors are successful, Hayne will be handcuffed in the court, taken down to the cells and then ferried to either Silverwater or Parklea maximum correctional centre by prison van.
Ms Cunneen had told the court that Hayne was ‘too high-profile’ to be sent to prison and that media coverage of his trial had attracted vile messages on Ms Bonnici’s personal Facebook page and threats against Hayne when he was eventually imprisoned.
Judge Turnbull agreed with Hayne’s defence counsel Margaret Cunneen SC that ‘who he is and what’s surrounded him’ has made him ‘particularly vulnerable in the circumstances’. Afterwards Hayne and Ms Bonnici were escorted from the court to a waiting car by seven sheriffs.
‘It is something which is an exceptional case and created an exceptional circumstance,’ she said. ‘I’m of the view they exist sufficient to justify a rejection of the detention application.’ The court heard hundreds of threats in the days since he was found guilty has been posted on Twitter.
Jarryd Hayne was at Merrylands yesterday with his wife and children as prosecutors prepared to argue that he should be locked up ahead of his sentencing next month when it is ‘not in debate’ that he will be jailed.
‘Should lock him up with a few guys and teach him what it’s like to have your consent disregarded,’ one post read. ‘You are the lowest of the low you deserve no sympathy,’ another said. Another said: ‘Big bubba is waiting’.
Judge Turnbull said there was evidence Hayne had been ‘vilified’ in the public arena but said it was ‘not under debate’ that Hayne was going to prison on sentencing next month. Ms Cunneen said Hayne’s young family has endured large amounts of ‘vitriol’ following the verdict.
The court heard Hayne had previously been targeted in prison by other inmates, meaning would have to be held in protective custody, in a three by three metre cell with a caged yard.
‘This is a case which is exceptional, there wouldn’t be such a massive press contingent present in court if there wasn’t something exceptional about this case, but that has added to the unrelenting media pressure on this very young family,’ Ms Cunneen said.
Ms Cunneen said Hayne was now ‘much more liable’ to attacks from other prisoners because the ‘intensity of publicity’ was greater than ever. ‘The visceral response is grossly out of proportion to the relative seriousness to the circumstances in this case,’ she said.
