Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Seaman not guilty of indecent acts

A high ranking chief in the Royal Australian Navy has been cleared of four charges after a tribunal heard he climbed into bed with a junior female officer and touched her breast.

CANBERRA Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Seaman leaves the Defence Force Magistrates Court in Canberra on January 30 2023.

A high ranking chief in the Royal Australian Navy has been cleared of criminal charges after he touched a junior female colleague’s breast following her boozy house-warming.

Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Seaman was charged with four counts of committing an act of indecency against a significantly lower ranked officer who was 15 years his junior after an event near the Navy’s Jervis Bay base in 2019.

At the defence force magistrate’s tribunal, which has convened at HMAS Kuttabul at Garden Island over three days, a prosecutor alleged Seaman twice picked up and kissed the younger woman, then – after she was asleep – crawled into her bed, and groped her breast skin on skin underneath her pyjama shirt.

Seaman denied making contact with the woman’s lips, and submitted crawling into her bed in isolation was not an indecent act.

His defending officer further submitted Seaman did not deny having his hand on her breast, but was not criminally responsible as there was no evidence he was awake when he committed the act.

Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Seaman leaves the Defence Force Magistrates Court in Canberra on January 30 2023.

In her evidence, the woman said she told her housemate what had happened the next day, but a formal complaint was not made for about two years – at which point, Seaman was the woman’s chief on a deployment from NSW to Townsville and Darwin.

At the time of the incident the woman was not in Seaman’s chain of command.

At HMAS Kuttabul on February 10, DFM Group Captain Scott Geeves found Seaman not guilty of all charges.

Cpt Geeves found there was reasonable doubt the offences occurred because two other junior officers’ evidence differed as to the woman’s discussion with them regarding the alleged kisses and the touching of her breast.

He further found the act of getting into her bed, in circumstances where he had found Seaman not guilty of actually kissing the woman, was not indecent in and of itself.

Pictured leaving the Garden Island navy base today is the family of Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Seaman. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Cpt Geeves, nevertheless, described the woman as an “honest” and “earnest” witness who he did not perceive to have “embellished” her account of the incident with Seaman.

The woman gave an emotional account of her allegations over a video link, becoming tearful when she described waking up in her bed beside Seaman with his arm draped over her and his hand on her breast.

When Seaman’s defending officer Squadron Leader Thompson asked the woman if she had offered for the navy chief to “crash” in her bed, the woman was unequivocal.

“No, absolutely not,” the woman said emphatically.

The woman also described her fears about speaking up with her claims and the potential personal and professional consequences.

“There is a lot of social stigma around these types of things, I knew he was friends with a lot of people at the squadron and I didn’t want those repercussions to affect me socially and professionally,” the woman said.

The woman said she even invited Seaman to her birthday party some time after the incident due to her fears he would ask why he was the only person in their team not invited to the event.

“I thought it was easier if he was just invited and that hopefully he just wouldn’t show up,” the woman said.

Seaman – who has been in the RAN for 27 years and has a spotless service record to date – exercised his right not to give evidence before the tribunal.

As a chief petty officer, he holds the highest non-commissioned rank in the RAN.

The woman was then an able seaman – the navy’s second lowest rank, six years into her career and approximately 15 years younger than Seaman.