The jury in the trial of footballers Jack de Belin and Callan Sinclair have signalled they may continue deliberating into next week in order to reach a unanimous verdict on the aggravated sexual assault charges against the men.
Agonising wait in NRL star rape trial The agonising wait for all parties in the sex assault trial of Jack de Belin and his friend has continued after jury deliberations entered their second day.
Crime by Heath Parkes-Hupton 4th May 2021 1:12 PM NRL star Jack de Belin s wait for a verdict in his sexual assault trial alongside mate Callan Sinclair has entered a second day. The jury of eight men and four women retired to begin their deliberations about 10.15am on Monday morning. The trial held at Sydney s Downing Centre District Court is the second the men have faced over the allegations, after their first trial held in Wollongong last year was unable to be completed.
04:25 EDT, 3 May 2021
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A jury has retired to consider its verdicts in the trial of NRL footballer Jack de Belin, who denies raping a woman with a friend after a pub crawl in 2018.
The St George Illawarra forward, 30, and his friend Callan Sinclair, 23, have both pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of aggravated sexual assault, saying their encounter with the then-19-year-old in a North Wollongong unit was consensual.
The Sydney District Court jury began deliberations on Monday morning, following 13 days of pre-recorded and live evidence in which the woman testified she left a bar with the men under the misapprehension she was heading to another bar.
The woman accusing Jack de Belin of rape is the sort of person who takes a grain of fact then distorts, changes and moulds it to tell a tale, the footballer s lawyer says.
After leaving the bar in the cityâs CBD, the woman got into a bike taxi with de Belin and Sinclair and headed to the unit where she says she was attacked. She jumped into the tuk-tuk under the belief they were heading to a nearby club, Fever, the jury has heard.
But Campbell highlighted footage showing the woman seeing off friends, who were walking to the club.
âIt further shows she well knew something was on at that point or else she would have gone with her friends and walked the short distance to Fever,â he said.
The crown says evidence of the tuk-tuk rider, Gary Poort, about de Belin not giving a destination address was âentirely consistentâ with the woman not knowing she was headed to the unit until arriving there.