Former Vodafone Fiji Bati and Australian Kangaroos’ star Jarryd Hayne has won an appeal against his rape convictions and has been ordered to stand trial for a fourth time in the same case.
The 36-year-old was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury last year and sentenced to spend at least three years in jail.
He has consistently denied he attacked the woman - who cannot legally be named - in her bedroom, arguing the pair had consensual sex.
Hayne was one of the most high-profile athletes in the NRL and briefly played American football in the NFL.
During an 11-day trial last year, the 26-year-old woman told a New South Wales (NSW) court the pair had chatted on social media for two weeks before Hayne stopped at her house in Newcastle - about two hours north of Sydney - after a bachelor party in September 2018.
Hayne’s appeal was heard in April by a panel of three judges from the State's top court.
When delivering the verdict, Justice Stephen Rothman said it had amounted to a miscarriage of justice, ordering Hayne's convictions to be quashed.
Last year's trial was the third time Hayne has stood accused over the same case. His first trial ended in a hung jury, and a guilty verdict in the second trial was overturned on appeal.
He has collectively spent almost two years in jail as the legal saga has unfolded, and his accuser has been forced to give evidence and face lengthy cross-examination multiple times.
Hayne twice won the NRL's Player of the Year award and played 11 Tests for Australia.
At the height of his NRL career, in 2015, he joined the NFL in the US with the San Francisco 49ers.
BBC
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