Former A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack pleads guilty to child porn offences
THE explicit messages Channel 9 star Ben McCormack exchanged with another man have been revealed. Warning: Confronting.
WARNING: Confronting content
FORMER Channel 9 star Ben McCormack didn’t believe he could escape his attraction to small boys because they were too “beautiful”, court documents reveal.
He talked with another man about their love of young boys in a series of explicit text messages detailed in the police facts tendered to the Downing Centre Local Court where the 43-year-old yesterday pleaded guilty to two child porn charges.
It is the first time the police case against the former A Current Affair journalist has been able to be reported.
McCormack used the name Oz4skinboi when he spoke to the man, who wasn’t identified in the documents, and introduced himself by telling him he loved “small, smooth hairless” young boys.
The conversations between McCormack and the man took place between April 30, 2015 and January 1, 2017 and were discovered on a social networking site by police from the NSW Sex Crimes Child Exploitation Internet Unit.
He confessed he favoured boys as young as seven because they had “perfect bodies” and was a “proud pedo, proud b lover”.
In one message, on May 13, 2015, McCormack informed him he was “meeting up with horny dudes fri night ... U free to Skype with us? Over wot we love?”
The pair discussed what child porn material each had and what the best way to view it was.
He said: “I love boys so much”.
Much of the police facts is too explicit for news.com.au to publish.
McCormack was sensationally charged with using a carriage service to transmit child pornography in April after raids on both his Sydney home and the A Current Affair offices at the Nine Network. The maximum penalty is 15 years jail.
The agreed facts state police never found any videos or photos of child pornography transmitted by McCormack — but the conversations showed the men exchanged images.
“These entries are in some instances surrounded by discussion of the images sent. The material sent is not available. Accordingly there is no evidence that the images sent by the accused were of children in pornographic poses or activities,” the facts read.
In a message he sent on June 26, 2015, McCormack said: “I love chatting to pedos”.
He and the man then discussed a series of sex acts they wanted to commit on young boys.
On the same day the man said to him: “Mate, you think you will always be a p [paedophile]?”
McCormack replied: “Yep. U? I’ll always have the attraction....They are beautiful.”
On August 1 the two men talked about their desire for sex with underage boys. The unidentified male said: “Can’t wait to have one for real ha.”
McCormack answered: “They are so beautiful. I want to make love to one so badly.”
Talk then turns to meeting a third man and his nephew and taking turns to have sex with the boy. McCormack said: “Imagine it.”
In a sinister series of messages that began on August 18, the man refers to touching a number of students on the backside. McCormack gave the man a series of instructions about how he could get closer to the boys.
McCormack went on to say that boys in speedos were “amazing”, adding: “Small speedos, so small ... I love them so much.”
On New Year’s Day this year, the man asked McCormack, who said he favoured “naughty boys” if he thought he would ever “play with one? Or just fantasy?”
“I’d love to,” McCormack told him.
Later that day he added: “Proud ped, proud b lover.”
In a 30-second video McCormack sent to the man of him masturbating he is heard to say: “Oh I perv non stop man, the beach, the shopping centre, the movies. Yeah I love it.”
The messages were intercepted by police who tracked McCormack down after the other man called him “Ben” and mentioned he was linked to Channel 9 and A Current Affair.
His solicitor Sam Macedone told Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson that McCormack had agreed on the set of facts with Commonwealth prosecutors.
He was remanded on bail to be sentenced next Friday, October 6 at the Sydney District Court.
Outside court, Mr Macedone told reporters that McCormack did not trade any images of children and insisted the charges related to nothing more than “fantasy talk”.
“I just wanted to make it quite clear that there were never any images that were traded between Ben and anyone else of any child exploitation material. It was nothing more than fantasy talk, but no transporting of images,” he told reporters.
The delay in pleading guilty was due to the disagreement on the facts, which had been resolved. “That’s what I wanted, that’s what we’ve got, so we’re now pleading guilty and we’ll move on from there,” Mr Macedone said.
McCormack was outside court with his lawyer, but did not comment when asked if he was scared of going to jail.
After his arrest he was admitted to a Sydney hospital — the name of which is suppressed — to receive mental health treatment.
McCormack formally resigned from the Nine Network two months ago.
One of the major stories of his career was when he tracked down Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes in Singapore in 2010 while the actor was being investigated by the same police sex crimes unit that arrested McCormack.
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