{"id":761447,"date":"2026-06-26T11:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761447\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T11:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:39:12","slug":"former-hobart-hurricanes-cricketer-changes-plea-to-guilty-over-underage-sexual-abuse-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761447\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Hobart Hurricanes cricketer changes plea to guilty over underage sexual abuse charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Hobart Hurricanes cricketer has pleaded guilty to underage sexual abuse charges.<\/p>\n

In September last year, Aaron William Summers, 30, pleaded not guilty to two counts of the sexual abuse of a young person and one count of grooming, but changed his plea to guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The two counts of abuse occurred while he was playing for the Hobart Hurricanes in January 2018.<\/p>\n

WARNING: This story contains details of child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Liz Avery told the court that Summers was 21 when he met the 15-year-old girl, when she and her friends took a photo with him following a Hobart Hurricanes game.<\/p>\n

The court heard Summers knew the girl was underage at the time, and after exchanging messages on social media, he drove to her house in the greater Hobart area at night to pick her up.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Aaron William Summers is a former Big Bash cricketer. (Getty Images:\u00a0Robert Prezioso)<\/p>\n

Ms Avery told the court that he drove to a local school, laid down a doona, took his clothes off and sexually abused her. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The grooming charges related to social media contact between them from this incident until January 2021.<\/p>\n

“It appears the accused abused his power as a high-profile sportsperson,” Ms Avery said.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Caroline Graves, said he was not playing regularly for the Hurricanes at the time and disputed whether he was a “high-profile sporting identity”.<\/p>\n

She said Summers was socially isolated at the time due to living interstate.<\/p>\n

“[It was a] transient and unsettled time,” she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The court heard Summers knew the girl was underage at the time of the offending. (ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke)<\/p>\n

Previous offending<\/p>\n

Ms Avery told the court that in May 2021, the Australian Federal Police arrested Summers and seized his phone in relation to other matters in the Northern Territory, where they located six images of the complainant.<\/p>\n

Sexual assault support services:<\/p>\n

In November 2021, Summers pleaded\u00a0guilty to those charges in the NT, including possessing and transmitting child abuse material and\u00a0transmitting communication with someone under 16 with the intention of procuring the recipient to engage in, or make,\u00a0sexual activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, the\u00a0Northern Territory\u00a0Supreme Court\u00a0heard that Summer used his position as a professional sportsperson to build trust with victims and solicit sexually explicit material from them through Snapchat and Instagram.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The charges occurred after the Tasmanian matter, and related to multiple victims, including two boys who were\u00a0aged 12 and 13.<\/p>\n

After seeing news coverage on these matters, the Tasmanian complainant reported her matter to the police.<\/p>\n

Summers served three years and 11 months in prison in the NT. He was arrested on the day of his release and extradited to Tasmania to face these charges.<\/p>\n

There were two main disputed facts between the defence and prosecution, so the matter will return to court for a hearing next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Hobart Hurricanes cricketer has pleaded guilty to underage sexual abuse charges. In September last year, Aaron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[363524,7814,64,63,363526,2025,740,5394,133419,363525,273866,514,8867,54920,19541,85],"class_list":["post-761447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-aaron-william-summers","tag-abuse","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-caroline-graves","tag-charges","tag-cricket","tag-help","tag-hobart-hurricanes","tag-hobart-supreme-court","tag-lines","tag-mental-health","tag-northern-territory","tag-plea","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761447","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=761447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}