Amellia Hayne’s public stoicism, through three criminal trials, ended on hearing a jury had found her partner of seven years, Jarryd, guilty of rape.
And it is that image, of the 31-year-old mother with her head in her hands sobbing, that prompts almost as much intrigue as the tawdry details of her husband’s bad behaviour.
Hayne is a convicted rapist. But he also looks like a false-hearted blockhead, who stopped a taxi on the way to a function, with the hope of having sex with a complete stranger.
He will remain on bail until a sentencing hearing on May 8, Judge Graham Turnbull ruled on Thursday afternoon.
Amellia met Hayne in 2016, and their young daughter was born soon after.
But since the night of that rape, in 2018, she has steadfastly supported him through three trials, walking through a media throng to sit and listen to her partner’s treatment of another woman.
How he had exchanged cheap sexualised messages with her.
How he said he decided to “please’’ the woman, when she didn’t want to have sex.
How he argued the sexual activity was consensual.
How he kept a taxi running outside the woman’s home, while he chose to visit her.
Take rape out of it, and Amellia Hayne’s support of her husband is admirable.
Would you stay with a partner who stopped a cab to have sex with a woman, in the same way you might duck into the bottle shop on the way home from work?
No one knows what goes on in someone else’s relationship, and the couple lived apart for some period between 2016 and 2018 – but when Jarryd Hayne’s crass sex life plays out like it has to an international audience during this trial, it’s fair to ask whether Amellia Hayne’s loyalty runs beyond the ‘through good times and bad times’’ of any wedding vows.
Especially given this case has travelled through most of their marriage.
This rape occurred on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final – two years after the couple first started dating. Hayne was found guilty in 2021, and spent nine months in jail, before a retrial in 2022, and now this guilty verdict in 2023.
The couple married in 2021, five years after meeting in 2016 – and since then Amellia has seen her husband jailed and freed, retried and now he’s set to return to jail.
All his accolades – including the two Dally M Medals – are likely to be taken off him, as they should.
And without a change on appeal, Hayne, one of the NRL’s greatest all-time players, at 35, will be remembered for raping a woman, while a taxi waited outside.
His victim deserves a new freedom, after this trial; a sense of peace that justice has been done after a long, long time.
But I can’t help thinking of Amellia Hayne, too. She deserves so much more.
Perhaps former first lady Melania Trump has learned that, with her absence from her husband’s side becoming an important side story to his arraignment on criminal charges.
As the first commander-in-chief in US history to face criminal charges, Trump thanked and praised his family – Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka and Barron, his teen son with third wife Melania – who was noticeably absent.
No thanks from the 76-year-old for the partner who has been forced, over years, to listen to stories about hush money payments to a porn star and a former Playboy model, purported extramarital affairs and just plain bad behaviour.
Perhaps there becomes a statute of limitations on loyalty; a time frame when loyalty expires over bad or criminal behaviour that destroys the trust of a partnership or shows the real personality of someone you live with.
Melania might have reached that mark. And as much as I respect Amellia’s loyalty to Hayne, I’m hoping she’s almost there too.
