Former Royal Australian Navy officer David Graham, 50, faces jail

The jury has returned a verdict on former Royal Australian Navy officer David Graham on child sex crimes.

David Graham (left) a top former naval officer, has been found guilty of a string of child sex offences. He is pictured being presented with the Conspicuous Service Cross. PICTURE: Royal Australian Navy/Supplied

DAVID Graham has gone from being one of Australia’s most respected naval officers to a disgraced child sex offender.

A Northern Territory Supreme Court jury took less than four hours to find the 50-year-old former commander guilty of seven child sex offences including attempted rape.

The jury acquitted him of a single charge of indecent assault.

David Graham, a former high ranking naval officer, arrives at the Supreme Court.

Graham, who was until last year the commanding officer of HMAS Choules, was remanded in custody and sent back to Holtze Prison, where he had last spend a short stint last year following his extradition.

His supporters became visibly emotional when the jury foreman delivered the verdict.

Graham, of Canberra, now faces an almost inevitable stint behind bars.

The charges — which Graham vehemently denied — involved two victims, whose family the officer befriended when he was posted to Darwin as a patrol boat captain.

Graham’s crimes included fondling one child’s genitalia and attempting to digitally penetrate the other.

Graham plied one of his victims — then a teenager — with beer, some of which he added tequila to, and had the other victim sit on his lap while playing computer games.

Both victims are now young adults.

David Graham was commanding officer of HMAS Choules (pictured). He has now been found guilty of a string of child sex offences.

The allegations against Graham emerged when one of his victims visited the other overseas in 2017 and brought it up over a beer at the pub.

One of the victims had previously confided in an a high school sweetheart, who gave evidence at the trial.

Graham’s defence relied heavily on his “good character” as a decorated naval officer and trusted uncle to his sisters’ children.

He claimed the allegations against him were a fabrication.

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Graham, giving evidence in his own defence, denied all sexual wrongdoing, but admitted to allowing his younger victim — aged either seven or eight at the time — to sleep in his bed at his apartment in Larrakeyah.

Since Graham was charged and Justice Graham Hiley lifted a blanket non-publication order on the case earlier this week, the navy has been scrubbing its websites of photos of the officer, including one of him receiving the Conspicuous Service Cross from the then-Governor General Quentin Bryce.

The medal was for Graham’s service as executive officer of HMAS Creswell, the navy’s officer training school at Jervis Bay.

Graham will return to court for sentencing proceedings on August 21.