![\"Amber](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6cf3ef58425442818dbc04724af4be2696ecdd06.png\")
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October 2, 2026 \u2014 6:31am<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Police have arrested a man after he allegedly grabbed a young woman, dragged her into bushland and sexually assaulted her in a terrifying nighttime ordeal in Sydney\u2019s inner west.<\/p>\n Jesse Lee Hardy, 27, was arrested on Thursday following a two-week investigation and charged with aggravated sex assault while inflicting bodily harm, choking, kidnapping and stalking offences.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old woman had been walking from Flemington Station through Airey Park in Homebush just after 11pm on Friday, September 18 when she was approached by the unknown man.<\/p>\n She called police in the days after the alleged attack.<\/p>\n On Thursday, police searched a property in Padstow, south-west Sydney and seized several items.<\/p>\n Hardy was taken to Bankstown Police Station and charged with the four offences.<\/p>\n He was refused bail to appear at Bankstown Local Court on Friday.<\/p>\n Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men\u2019s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.<\/p>\n Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.<\/a><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Jesse](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/daeb0e595a5cde5252cc79d3b22b4a412b9be23bbf72bb03bbc03cec983b9833.jpeg\")
Jesse Lee Hardy was arrested after allegedly kidnapping a woman and sexually assaulting her in a park in Homebush.NSW Police<\/p>\n![\"Amber](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790895255_377_6cf3ef58425442818dbc04724af4be2696ecdd06.png\")
Amber Schultz<\/a> is a crime and justice reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October 2, 2026 \u2014 6:31am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-912755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912755","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=912755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}