{"id":571682,"date":"2026-03-29T08:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T08:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571682\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T08:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T08:23:14","slug":"jack-de-belin-begins-lawsuit-against-state-over-extended-trial-lost-earnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571682\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack de Belin begins lawsuit against state over extended trial, lost earnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parramatta Eels<\/a> forward Jack de Belin<\/a> is set to commence a new legal action in court, seeking damages of up to a million dollars over his rape trial which saw him sidelined from the NRL<\/a> for almost three years.<\/p>\n

The forward, who played with the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> at the time, went through two separate trials, and had multiple delays throughout the process.<\/p>\n

After being originally charged with an alleged aggrivated sexual assault on December 13, 2018, he was stood down by the NRL<\/a> under the no-fault stand-down rule on February 28, 2019.<\/p>\n

The forward, who went to federal court in a bid to have his no-fault stand-down overturned at one point, faced court in 2020 for the first time over the incident, but the trial was delayed after a key witness fell ill.<\/p>\n

When the hearing was finally held in November 2020, a police officer who can not be named for legal reasons, was charged following an internal investigation which found he had lied during a pre-trial hearing in February 2020.<\/p>\n

The officer had viewed legally privileged messages between de Belin and his lawyer and was eventually arrested for purjery, before being sentenced to a 12-month jail term that he was allowed to serve in the community.<\/p>\n

While the first hearing could not return a verdict and the jury were dismissed, it wasn’t until 2021 when de Belin was in court again for a secondary hearing, with a jury who had heard 13 days of evidence again not able to return a unanimous verdict.<\/p>\n

De Belin, with the option for a third trial dismissed, then had the no-fault stand-down dismissed on May 28, but the former Dragons prop will now sue the state for $1 million per a News Corp report.<\/p>\n

It’s believed he is claiming that the police officer’s actions led to an extended criminal prosecution and the possibility that he could have been wronfully convicted.<\/p>\n

De Belin, who is currently out of Parramatta’s side under coach Jason Ryles<\/a> during his first season with the club, has reportedly launched the case but not yet filed a claim with the court, although already has a date set down for next month for the hearing.<\/p>\n

The forward is believed to have spent around $1 million in legal fees during the original trials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parramatta Eels forward Jack de Belin is set to commence a new legal action in court, seeking damages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-571682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571682","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=571682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}