Today a former minister in Australia’s New South Wales state government spoke out on sexual assault charges being brought against him. Gareth Ward is being charged with sexually abusing a man and a teenage boy. Mr. Ward has accumulated five charges in total. The now independent MP is alleged by police to have committed said crimes back in 2013 and 2015.
According to police, Ward was charged with three counts of assault with an act of indecency and one count of sexual intercourse without consent, and common assault. The crimes are said to have been committed between 2013 and 2015 with a 27-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy being the survivors of sexual assault, as per the charges. The statement furthered that Ward was granted conditional bail and that he was due to appear in court on May 18, 2022.
The forty-year-old denied all charges and stated to the press earlier today, “I will be instructing my lawyers to seek to bring this matter before the courts as quickly as possible and I look forward to demonstrating my innocence there.” Following the police’s announcement of charging Ward, he later admitted to police investigating him since 2021 and explained that his leaving of parliament and decision to conclude ministering for families, communities, and disability services was due to the current charges getting brought against him.
While making his own statement, Ward expressed his distaste for what the local press has to say about his case, “While others have already attempted to prosecute my case in the media rather than the courts, out of respect for our system of justice I will not be doing the same.” he concluded his speaking out with “Accordingly, I will be making no further comment at this time.”
Following Ward’s story being left undetermined, Dominic Perrottet, New South Wales Premier, said he seeks to remove independent Gareth Ward from the state’s parliament following the public announcement of the charges that occurred earlier Tuesday, despite the risk to the government’s numbers. “While Mr. Ward is entitled to the presumption of innocence, as any citizen is, the standards expected of an elected member of parliament are not compatible with the seriousness of the charges he is facing,” Perrottet said. Perrottet continued to say that he would move a motion seeking his expulsion if the MP did not resign voluntarily.
Following Perrottet’s announcement calling the former minister to step down, Perrottet also wrote to the state director of the Liberal party to ask for Ward to be suspended from the political party pending the outcome of the trial. Following Perrottet’s announcement Tuesday morning, the government has been unable to contact Ward. It remains unclear if an expulsion motion would be moved this week.
