Former Australian rugby league player Jarryd Hayne has been jailed for five years and nine months for sexual assault. 

In March, a jury found 33-year-old Hayne guilty of attacking a 26-year-old woman in her home in 2018.

He will have to serve a minimum of three years and eight months before being eligible for parole.

This was the second trial in the case after a jury could not come to a decision in December.

District Court Judge Helen Syme said on Thursday that Hayne was fully aware the victim was not consenting and went ahead anyway.

“The reliability and honesty of the victim’s evidence was tested at length and in my view, her reliability was not in doubt,” the judge said.

“She said no several times and the use of force was such that the victim had no prospect of stopping him physically.

“He was at least twice her weight at 100 kilograms and an athlete at the top of his form.”

Hayne, who had a spell in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, had faced a maximum possible sentence of 14 years in jail.

The incident happened on the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final when Hayne was in Newcastle for a friend’s stag party.

Hayne played nearly 200 games for Sydney-based NRL team Parramatta Eels, winning the Dally M Medal, the league’s highest individual honour, in 2009 and 2014.

The Sydney-born fullback scored 11 tries in 11 appearances for the Kangaroos, Australia’s representative rugby league team, and was named in the NRL’s team-of-the-decade for 2010-19.

Hayne was accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit brought by a woman in California in 2016 after police decided not to charge him over an alleged incident in 2015.

Hayne said at the time he “unequivocally and vehemently” denied the allegations.

The case was settled in 2019 before going to trial.

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