Two NSW footballers behind bars after being found guilty of rape

In short:

Scone Thoroughbreds rugby league players Hayden Topliss and Ryan Hawkshaw have been found guilty of raping woman in 2023.

The men stood trial for a week in the Newcastle District Court and the jury spent a day deliberating.

 What's next:

Bail for the guilty pair has been revoked and they will be sentenced in November.

Two country New South Wales footballers are now behind bars after being found guilty of raping a woman at Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley in 2023.

Warning: this story includes details that some readers may find distressing.

Scone Thoroughbreds rugby league players Hayden Charles Topliss, 37, and Ryan Matthew Hawkshaw, 27, stood trial for a week in the Newcastle District Court.

Both faced four counts of aggravated sexual intercourse in company, while Topliss faced two additional charges of aggravated sexual intercourse and sexual touching.

The court heard the woman repeatedly said "no" and "stop" during the assault.

The men had pleaded not guilty, claiming there was consent.

A jury today rejected that, finding the men guilty on all counts after deliberating for one day.

Supporters of the guilty pair sobbed and gasped as the verdicts were handed down. 

Night of 'torture'

The offences happened in a spare bedroom at Topliss's house in Scone.

The woman told jurors she had consensual sex with Hawkshaw before Topliss came in and forced her down.

She said she was pulled around the bed, repositioned and had her hair pulled.

In her closing address, Crown Prosecutor Charisse Hodgeman said the woman was "unshaken and firm" when giving evidence that was "inherently believable".

"Her account was a detailed one rather than a false or reconstructed account," Ms Hodgeman said.

Ms Hodgeman said the woman never imagined there would be group sex.

The woman told jurors what happened in the spare bedroom that night was "torture".

 The jury accepted there was no consent and the woman was repeatedly raped.