Kiama MP Gareth Ward is on trial over alleged sexual assaults against two young men in 2013 and 2015. Photo: Facebook.
Claims Kiama MP Gareth Ward sexually assaulted two young men on separate occasions depend on the “say-so” of the two complainants, and were furthered through the police investigation by a “malevolent” police officer, a Sydney court has heard.
In the final days of Mr Ward’s trial in Darlinghurst District Court, his defence barrister David Campbell addressed the jury and urged them to find Mr Ward not guilty of the five charges he faces.
Mr Ward stands accused of three counts of indecent assault, a fourth alternative count of common assault and a fifth count of sexual intercourse without consent in relation to two separate incidents alleged to have taken place in 2013 and 2015.
Mr Ward has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The 2013 incident is alleged to have occurred at Mr Ward’s Meroo Meadow home following the Nowra Show.
Mr Campbell suggested the complainant had confused or conflated different events that had taken place at different times.
“Mr Ward was still a young man at this point and by virtue of his office had a close association with young people of the Nowra area with an interest in politics and members of the Young Liberals,” he said.
“Socialising with them is a way of encouraging them.
“It is not surprising on some of these occasions where too much alcohol was drunk, and some of these young people it seems had an interest in drugs as well, that things got out of hand.
“None of us know whether there might have been an occasion where one of these young fellows passed out and that may have necessitated Mr Ward approaching them, shaking them to see if they’re all right.
“Whether some such innocent occasion has been internally distorted in the complainant’s mind is something we will never know.”
Mr Campbell said the complainant’s recollections of exactly when Mr Ward allegedly assaulted him changed over time, and that there was no external evidence to support the claim that the complainant was at Mr Ward’s home on the night in question.
This includes phone records or taxi receipts, as the taxi business had changed hands by the time police asked for records.
Mr Campbell was also critical of one of the investigating officers, former detective senior constable Cameron Bignell.
In regards to the 2015 incident, Mr Campbell proposed that Mr Bignell may have made suggestions that led to the complainant being able to correctly identify Mr Ward’s Potts Point address and the layout of the home.
It was Mr Campbell’s assertion that the second complainant was never at Mr Ward’s home.
“Police obtained records concerning real estate owned by Mr Ward,” he told the court.
“As if that’s not enough, [Mr Bignell] went to the trouble to attend an execution of warrant, so the officer had been in the apartment before the walkthrough took place.
“What else may have happened? We don’t know.
“The malevolence of Mr Bignell … who took a statement from Mr Ward’s housemate.
“It seems he doesn’t ask one question about his movements on this night, whether he was at the apartment, whether he had come across the complainant.
“One wonders why. As if not astonishing enough, he, for reasons he could not tell you, took no steps to take any statement from the other housemate.
“The other housemate said he was there that night and the next morning and described his routine and had never seen the complainant at that unit.
“It’s powerful evidence as to where the complainant wasn’t.”
Mr Campbell suggested that phone, Parliament House swipe card and Opal card evidence suggested the complainant may have spent the night at Parliament House, not at Mr Ward’s home.
He argued that friendly text messages from the two complainants to Mr Ward in the years following the alleged assaults were evidence no such offending ever took place.
“The words in those messages are expressions of endearment, expressions that are not of an ilk you would expect emanating from someone who says they had previously been sexually violated by another person,” Mr Campbell said.
“You don’t write to them like that.”
The jury has retired to consider its verdict in the matter.
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