Former AFL player Callum Hay has been sentenced to more than five years in jail for raping a woman twice at the gym that he owned just outside Adelaide.
The Port Power midfielder turned bodybuilder was found guilty of two counts of rape but was acquitted of a third charge in August last year.
Members of Hay’s family and his supporters cried in the public gallery as the sentence was passed at the District Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Jim Pearce KC had told the court that Hay had first forced himself on the victim while he was in a car with her outside BFT Gym in Mount Barker in February 2023.
The prosecutor told the court that Hay had ‘grabbed the woman by the neck’.
‘Before she left the fitness centre, the accused had tried to kiss her. She protested. She moved away. He persisted. She told him to stop, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer,’ Pearce told the court in August.
Former Port Adelaide AFL player turned bodybuilder Callum Hay (pictured) was jailed for more than five years in a South Australian court on Wednesday
Hay (pictured during his playing days with the Power) was found guilty of two counts of rape
‘She tried to pull away. He then put his hands down her pants and she protested. She told him to stop.’
Pearce said that Hay had then ‘started masturbating’ while looking at the victim.
The former footy player had been oblivious to the fact that the victim had recorded the incident on her phone.
Pearce also told the court that days later, Hay had approached the woman again in the gym and forced her up against a wall.
‘She was begging him to let her go. He was groping her. He groped her breasts,’ Pearce said.
On Wednesday, Judge Ian Press brought up one of Hay’s remarks to the victim as he jailed him.
‘Towards the end of that incident [the second rape], when you were again told to stop, you said to her, “I don’t want to stop”,’ Judge Press told the court.
‘That comment is, I consider, informative.’
Judge Ian Press highlighted the fact that Hay (pictured) told his victim ‘I don’t want to stop’ during one of the attacks
Family and supporters of Hay (pictured) wept as he was jailed
Last December, the woman Hay raped revealed the full toll of his crime in a blistering statement to the court.
She condemned him for having a ‘complete lack of remorse and refusing to accept responsibility’ before saying that Hay had ‘threatened her life’ and had ‘enjoyed and fed on her fear’.
‘Callum, not only did you seek pleasure in my fear, you have shown no remorse and refused to accept responsibility,’ she said.
‘You have continued to harm me through your denials, lies and the slander of my character.
‘Your ongoing denial of the truth demonstrates an absence of accountability and a complete lack of remorse.’
She added: ‘The jury has recognised the truth of what I endured by finding you guilty.
‘It is essential you are held accountable to prevent you from causing this level of harm to anyone else.
‘Callum, I refuse to let you or the abuse you inflicted define the rest of my life. I will rise, I will reclaim my voice, my safety and my future.
‘You no longer have power over me.’
Hay was sentenced to five years and eight months’ jail, backdated to August 15 last year, with a non-parole period of three years and two months.
