Police in Australia has confirmed on Tuesday that Gareth Ward (40), a state MP from Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) has been charged with sexually abusing a man and a teenage boy.
Ward has been a former state minister.
According to the police, he has been charged with three counts of assault with an act of indecency and one count of sexual intercourse without consent and common assault.
The crimes were committed between 2013 and 2015 with a 27-year-old man and a 17-year-old being the survivors of sexual assault, as per the charges.
“Police will allege in court that the man indecently assaulted a 17-year-old boy at Meroo Meadow in February 2013, and sexually abused a 27-year-old man in Sydney in September 2015,” said New South Wale Police on their website.
The statement further said that Ward had been granted conditional bail and that he was due to appear in court on May 18, 2022.
Ward has denied the allegations.
“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,” he said on Tuesday in a statement as quoted by theh Independent.
“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.”
“Accordingly, I will be making no further comment at this time.”
