{"id":37274,"date":"2025-08-01T10:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T10:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37274\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T10:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T10:58:08","slug":"disgraced-mp-gareth-ward-to-appeal-sex-crime-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37274\/","title":{"rendered":"Disgraced MP Gareth Ward to appeal sex crime conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Convicted sex offender Gareth Ward has confirmed he is seeking to appeal the verdict a week after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two young men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Ward said in a statement on Friday afternoon that he was &#8220;absolutely shattered&#8221; with the result of the trial and had been spending time with family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;I am taking advice about next steps, but I can confirm that I have provided instructions to my legal team to prepare an appeal at the earliest opportunity,&#8221; the statement read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The Member for Kiama has made no mention of resigning despite calls to do so from political leaders on both sides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The 44-year-old was convicted of three counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual intercourse without consent, serious offences that carry the likelihood of a full-time custodial sentence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\"><a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-07-30\/nsw-mp-gareth-ward-bail-decision\/105587494\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105587494\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">On Wednesday, Ward was taken into custody<\/a> after a District Court judge granted a prosecution application to revoke his bail ahead of sentencing set for September 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The Legislative Assembly is <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-07-26\/nsw-mp-gareth-ward-likely-to-be-removed-from-parliament-re-crime\/105574516\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105574516\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">expected to consider a motion to expel Ward<\/a> as its first order of business on Tuesday, following the MP&#8217;s conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">If the expulsion goes ahead, a by-election for the NSW south coast seat of Kiama could be called in as little as eight weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Convicted sex offender Gareth Ward has confirmed he is seeking to appeal the verdict a week after being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,22540,33677,44,9801,33676],"class_list":["post-37274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-gareth-ward","tag-member-for-kiama","tag-news","tag-parliament","tag-sex-offences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}