'Not hard': Jarryd Hayne warned NRL honours could be stripped
The NRL will "absolutely" consider stripping Jarryd Hayne of his individual honours, following the disgraced former star's sentencing for rape this week.
That's according to Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) Chairman Peter V'landys who's confirmed that discussions have already taken place about the possibility.
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Hayne's legal team on Friday lodged a Notice of Intention to appeal in the NSW Supreme Court after he was sentenced on Thursday to five years and nine months in jail for the sexual assault of a woman in 2018.
His sentence includes a non-parole period of three years and eight months.
The ex-Parramatta player was in March convicted of attacking the woman in her NSW Hunter bedroom on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final and forcibly performing oral and digital sexual intercourse on her.
Hayne - the 2009 and 2014 Dally M Player of the Year - now faces the very real prospect of having the highest individual honours in Australian rugby league stripped from him, unless his appeal is successful.
V'landys says league officials will wait until Hayne's appeal process is finished, but insisted that stripping Hayne of his NRL honours was a distinct possibility.
“No it’s not hard to take them away but we don’t want to prejudice the legal process,” V’landys said on radio station 2GB.
“We would like to see Jarryd exhaust his appeal process, once he’s done that we’ll make a decision.
“Naturally we’ll consult the Parramatta club that he played with, but I think it’s a bit early to be considering it.”
The ARLC chairman confirmed that if Hayne did lose his appeal, league chiefs would "absolutely" be inclined to strip him of his Dally M honours.
“Absolutely, yes, there will be consideration given that the Commission has already discussed it," V'landys added.
“But as I said, we don’t want to prejudice the process. We’ll consult the Parramatta club and we’ll make a decision after that.”
When delivering Hayne's sentencing on Thursday, District Court Judge Helen Syme said he had to be jailed because non-consensual sexual intercourse was an extreme form of violence.
The judge noted Hayne, 33, only stopped attacking the 28-year-old victim when she started to bleed, not when she told him to stop.
She also said she agreed with the jury's view that the woman was credible.
"The fact is she said no to the sexual activity the offender was forcing on her ... the offender was fully aware the victim was not consenting," the judge said.
Victim said Hayne destroyed her life
Hayne's use of force was such that the victim had no chance to halt his actions, given he had been a professional athlete.
Judge Syme also said it was hard to consider Hayne's prospects of rehabilitation as high, given he continues to maintain his innocence.
The woman in her victim impact statement said she was plagued by constant flashbacks of seeing Hayne's face during the assault.
She said Hayne had destroyed her life and she would never be the same again.
The woman told the court Hayne had made her feel dirty, violated, treated her like an object and had been seeing right through her.
The Crown case argued Hayne arrived drunk at the woman's house on Newcastle's outskirts in a taxi about 9pm on September 30, 2018.
He stayed for about 45 minutes and committed two sex acts on her without her consent, and caused two separate injuries to her genitalia.
with AAP
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