{"id":153637,"date":"2025-09-19T05:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153637\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T05:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:02:07","slug":"nrl-player-jack-de-belin-bemused-by-cops-perjury-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153637\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL player Jack de Belin bemused by cop’s perjury sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

An NRL player at the centre of a perjury case against a former police officer believes the sentence handed to the ex-cop should have been harsher.<\/p>\n

Known as Officer A for legal reasons, he was today given a one-year intensive corrections order, similar to a suspended jail sentence.<\/p>\n

The officer pleaded guilty to lying in evidence given during the high-profile rape trial of then-St George player Jack de Belin and co-accused Callan Sinclair in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Jack de Belin was sidelined for several years under the NRL’s no-fault stand-down rule. (Getty)<\/p>\n

“It was obviously a little bit light, but it is what it is,” de Belin said outside Wollongong District Court following the sentence.<\/p>\n

“What’s kept Cal and myself so strong throughout this is our innocence.”<\/p>\n

Officer A lied in the rape trial about what he found in text messages between de Belin and a contact saved as “Craig Lawyer” that were contained on a Nokia mobile phone.<\/p>\n

\"CallanCallan Sinclair went on trial twice with Jack de Belin. (Dominic Lorrimer)<\/p>\n

He falsely testified the texts only contained “Dragons business” despite knowing they likely contained privileged conversations between the player and his lawyer Craig Osborne.<\/p>\n

First charged in December 2018, de Belin and Sinclair faced two trials before charges were dropped by prosecutors in mid-2021.<\/p>\n

The case cruelled the forward’s career despite his legal efforts to challenge the NRL’s controversial no-fault stand-down rule that sidelined him for several years.<\/p>\n

Despite the perjury offence being serious because of the ex-officer’s senior position, Judge Christine Mendes found his significant mental health problems lessened the severity of the sentence required.<\/p>\n

“He is a highly fragile, broken man,” she said.<\/p>\n

The officer had been showing clear signs of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder for several years leading up to giving the false evidence in February 2020, the judge found.<\/p>\n

“Officer A did not seek professional treatment until Feb 2020 … he was clearly unwell and suffering,” she said.<\/p>\n

The judge rejected the prosecution argument the officer had a sophisticated and well-thought-out plan to commit perjury.<\/p>\n

De Belin and Sinclair denied sexually assaulting a then-19-year-old woman in December 2018, arguing they had a consensual threesome.<\/p>\n

The woman alleged she was attacked by de Belin in a North Wollongong unit and then cried as the men took turns assaulting her.<\/p>\n

A Wollongong jury was discharged less than two days into its deliberations in November 2020, having told the court it could “absolutely not” reach a verdict on any charges.<\/p>\n

A Sydney jury, hearing the case in mid-2021, spent more than a week before it too became stuck on nearly all charges.<\/p>\n

It acquitted de Belin and Sinclair of one charge each, relating to an incident the NRL player testified was accidental, and prosecutors dropped the remaining charges.<\/p>\n

Sinclair’s father Terry Sinclair told reporters today he believed police had been motivated by a “blatant and concerted” effort to convict a high-profile footballer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An NRL player at the centre of a perjury case against a former police officer believes the sentence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-153637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}