A former NSW Police officer will spend just one-and-a-half years behind bars for raping a 14-year-old boy in Sydney.
Mark Ward, 49, who previously pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse with a child, using a carriage service to sent indecent material to a person under 16 and possessing child abuse material, was earlier this month sentenced in Campbelltown District Court to two years and six months jail, with the final year to be served in the community.
Ward had left the force and was working as a Qantas flight attendant when he contacted his victim on gay sex app Grindr in 2017, court documents showed, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The conversation then moved to Snapchat where Ward sent photos of himself in his police uniform, engaged in explicit conversation with the boy who he then convinced to let him come over to have sex.
“That’s cool with me,” he said after the boy reiterated that he was 14, court documents stated. Ward then raped the boy, who eventually forced him to leave because he feared his family were about to arrive back at the home.
The victim reported the rape to police in 2023 after confiding in a friend.
Police then set up a fake Grindr profile of a 14-year-old, from which Ward asked for naked photos, and sent one of himself in a black G-string as well as sexually explicit messaged.
He was arrested at his home in St Andrews in mid-2023, and police later accessed his Telegram account after seizing his laptop and photos. According to court documents Ward sent a user named “no lim perv” messages saying he could be “tempted” by boys younger than 12.
Ward’s lawyer said at a sentence hearing last month that his client had faced a difficult time in custody due to his history with the NSW Police and the nature of his offending.
The homosexual paedophile will forfeit $500 and be released on a recognisance release order on May 31 next year.
Header image: Left, right, Mark Ward (Facebook)
