In the footage, taken on September 25, 2021, the man walked with police on a route beginning at NSW Parliament House and passing through The Domain, the Botanic Gardens and to Potts Point. The police then asked him to show them the route they took the following morning.
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Throughout the footage, the complainant could be heard recalling certain details to police, telling them he “couldn’t remember much from the night walk” because he “had a lot to drink that night”.
He told police his memory of the morning walk was clearer and that he remembered details such as leaving the foyer of Ward’s building, walking down a steep set of stairs and later stopping at the cafe at the Sydney Eye Hospital to have coffee and a bite to eat, before the pair made their way back inside Parliament House.
In cross-examination, Ward’s barrister David Campbell asked the man about a statement he gave police on May 21, 2021 – four months before the body-cam footage shown to the jury was recorded.
Campbell suggested the man told police he could not remember his evening route to Ward’s apartment and that all he could remember about the morning was walking across The Domain, to which the man responded: “Correct.”
“In particular, you said nothing about stopping at a coffee shop at Sydney Eye Hospital … You said nothing about sitting down and having coffee and something to eat such as banana bread,” Campbell said.
The alleged victim again responded: “Correct.”
The man agreed that he told police during the September 2021 walk, four months after the first statement, that he remembered walking down certain stairs.
When Campbell put to him that he “didn’t have a memory about walking down any stairs on May 1, 2021”, he responded: “No, because I hadn’t retraced my steps.”
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“Because in May 2021, you had no memory of any of those things” Campbell said.
In the video, the man said he remembered taking two different routes when walking to and from Ward’s home but, during cross-examination, admitted he may have been confused about the streets he took when retracing them with police.
Earlier in the man’s evidence, he described feeling “dirty and confused” in the aftermath of the alleged rape, and that he was hesitant to come forward and face risking “humiliation” due to Ward’s position as the Liberal Party minister responsible for child protection.
Separately to the allegations against the then-24-year-old, Ward is accused of inviting a then-18-year-old man to his Nowra home in February 2013 following a party the younger man had been at.
In the Crown’s earlier opening remarks, it was alleged Ward slid his hands into the man’s shorts and rubbed his buttocks and to the side of his scrotum while the man was lying on Ward’s grass, “pretending to be passed out, playing a joke”.
The Crown alleged Ward took the young man to his own bedroom to go to sleep and, as the young alleged victim lay on his stomach, Ward put his groin on top of his buttocks and gave him a lower back massage, only stopping after several requests to do so.
The defence team’s cross-examination continues in the trial before Judge Kara Shead that is expected to last for three to four weeks.
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