Australian politician Gareth Ward found guilty of rape

A New South Wales (NSW) politician has been found guilty of sexual assault on two young men in Australia.

The hearing was found by Gareth Ward – who is still a sedentary member of the State Parliament – guilty of three charges of indecent attack and one counting of rape.

Both casualties, who were 18 and 24, said they were attacked at Ward’s home after meeting the 44-year-old youth through political circles between 2013 and 2015.

Ward resigned as Minister of the State Government and the Liberal Party when the allegations appeared in 2021, but refused to leave parliament and were re -elected as a member of Kiama in 2023.

The jurors are discussed three days after hearing nine weeks of evidence in the NSW District Court.

The process heard Ward, invited a drunken 18-year-old man to his home in 2013 and invaded him three times, despite his attempts to resist.

Two years later, he raped a political officer after an event in Parliament.

Ward claims that the rape in 2015 did not happen and that the other applicant mistakenly remembered his 2013 meeting.

But the crown prosecutor Monica Knowles said that the striking similarities in the accounts of the two men who do not know each other showed that they were saying the truth.

“Such behavior, such an environment, the same person, the same conclusion. This is not a coincidence,” said Crown Prosecutor Monica Knowles before the trial, according to local media.

Ward will return to court later this year to be sentenced.

The NSW government has previously been considering voting for the expulsion of Ward – who has been a state -owned MP since 2011 – from parliament, but legal advice shows that this may risk taking advantage of his process.