00:00I'm Grace Crivolero and I'm a court reporter at the Illawarra Mercury.
00:04I've been covering Kiama MP Gareth Ward's criminal trial for the past four weeks.
00:08It's now entered its fifth week, so we thought we'd give you a bit of an overview of what's
00:12gone on so far. So Gareth Ward has been a politician in the area for quite a long time now.
00:18He was first elected into Shoalhaven City Council in 2004. He was elected as Kiama MP
00:24in 2011 and he retained that seat in 2023 in the latest state election. Gareth Ward is on trial
00:33for five charges which he has pleaded not guilty to. The first day of his trial was on May 26 in
00:41Sydney's Downing Centre District Court. These are historic sexual abuse charges and some assault
00:47charges. So Mr Ward has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and that's
00:53alleged to have been committed against a man who was 24 at the time in 2015 and that incident is
00:59alleged to have happened after an event at Parliament House. Mr Ward has also pleaded not
01:04guilty to three counts of indecent assault and one alternative count of common assault against a
01:10man who was 18 at the time at Gareth Ward's Maroo Meadow home in 2013. So he has pleaded not guilty to
01:18all of those allegations. On the first day of the trial, the prosecutors opened with those
01:22allegations and Mr Ward's defence team did not make an opening address and all that means is we'll
01:28just hear from his team at the end of the trial. So Mr Ward is facing trial in Sydney instead of a local
01:34court down here and basically it was scheduled for four weeks but we've entered the fifth week. We don't
01:41really know how long it's going to go for. There's only really been one main interruption which was last week
01:48on Wednesday or Thursday when a water main at the Downing Centre burst. A bit of chaos there, all
01:55lawyers, court reporters and other punters were evacuated from the building and it's one of the
02:00largest courts in Sydney and services a lot of matters. So those matters will all be delayed for
02:08four weeks while those repairs get underway but Mr Ward's trial was moved to Darlinghurst so it will continue
02:15there. So I've covered this trial most days now. You can head to illawarramercury.com.au to read more
02:21details about what's happened so far.
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