The lead detective investigating sexual assault allegations has admitted he previously lied to a court when he accessed privileged legal material related to the case.
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On his second day of cross examination, the officer in charge of the case, Detective Senior Constable Shawn Adams was questioned over why he looked at information on de Belin's phone between the Dragons player and his lawyer Craig Osborn.
The question came during de Belin, 29, and co-accused Callan Sinclair's NSW District Court trial in Wollongong where they have denied allegations they jointly raped a then 19-year-old woman in a North Wollongong townhouse in December 2018.
The pair have pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated sexual assault and claim the threesome was consensual.
During the course of the investigation, police captured the contents of de belin's Nokia phone, including 200 pages from a file titled "Craig lawyer".
De Belin's barrister David Campbell SC read out a court transcript from a February 7 pre-trial legal proceedings where the detective told the court he believed the file related to information about the Dragons board and had nothing to do with the case.
However, during the hearing, Snr Con Adams admitted he had falsely answered questions when he said he believed the communications were regarding "Dragons business".
During re-examination, Crown prosecutor David Scully told the court the detective had said he was "confused" when answering those questions.
Though when Snr Con Adams was asked on Wednesday "you wilfully lied to the court? Correct?"
The detective responded "yes".
The detective denied Mr Campbell's suggestion that he went though the 200 photos of privileged material with a "fine tooth comb".
"You looked through the file called Craig lawyer?" Mr Campbell asked
"Yes...I scrolled through it," the detective said.
Mr Campbell suggested the detective did that in an attempt to "undermine" the defence case.
"Incorrect," the detective replied.
Snr Con Adams admitted he did not inform the prosecutions team that he had read the privileged information however rejected the suggestion he used that information to ask the alleged rape victim further questions.
Earlier during the cross-examination, Mr Campbell asked the detective why he did not disclose to the prosecution and defence teams that the woman had given him an inconsistent version of events.
The detective explained that the woman had given him a "summary", with less detail, when they first discussed the alleged sexual assault at the police station on Sunday, December 9.
He told the jury he had summarised that conversation and entered a "situation report", which is an internal police report.
In that document, Snr Con Adams wrote that the woman told him de Belin and Sinclair had asked the tuk tuk rider to take them to the Gipps Street apartment so they could "get changed" after the trio left Mr Crown nightclub.
However, in the woman's police statement taken on December 10 and 11, she said the pair wanted to go to the apartment so they could "charge their phones".
Mr Campbell suggested the detective "buried" the discrepancy because he knew it did not support woman's case.
"I didn't bury it," the detective said.
Snr Con Adams told the jury the police statement was more in-depth and recorded after she answered many questions he had asked.
The detective said he did not disclose the discrepancy in the form of the situation report because it was not police practice to release internal documents to legal teams and he had never done so in all his years as a detective.
However, Snr Con Adams did admit it was his obligation to disclose the inconsistency to the Crown.
Mr Campbell went on to point out another inconsistency in the detective's situation report and the woman's police statement.
Mr Campbell asked why Snr Con Adams wrote that both men were involved in the removal of her shorts in the situation report.
"That was my interpretation of the conversation," the detective said.
However, the woman's statement said only de Belin had taken off her shorts.
The detective admitted that "in hindsight" he should have disclosed the discrepancy.
The trial continues.
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