“I felt like I just shrivelled inside myself, it was the most awkward feeling ever,” the complainant said.
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“He was breathing heavily, a heavy breath, I don’t know if it was because he had just run over to me. But that heavy breath and the skin-on-skin (contact) have just stuck with me about that exact moment.”
The complainant said he then pretended to jolt awake and stood up and told Ward he wanted to go to bed as they headed into the home.
Ward allegedly told the boy it wasn’t safe for him to sleep alone, and “steered” the teenager into his bedroom.
Inside the bedroom, the complainant told the court, Ward “mounted” him as he lay face down on the bed.
“He was basically sitting on my bum, he started massaging my lower back with his hands,” the complainant said.
“I froze again and, after not too long, I told him to stop and said ‘No, I’m going to sleep’.”
“I just wanted this situation to end as quickly as possible.”
The complainant said Ward told him to relax, and said he had done a course in massage, before ultimately stopping.
Over the following days and weeks the teenager and Ward messaged each other, the court heard.
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The complainant told the court he confided in a friend about what allegedly happened at Ward’s home.
The teenager’s friend said it was “obviously going to happen”, and joked the teenager was “gay for it”, the court heard.
The teenager decided he needed to just put the alleged indecent assault aside, as “that was probably my fault”.
At about that time, the complainant was receiving work through the Young Liberals and Ward.
“I had all these opportunities here related to Gareth and the Young Libs,” the complainant told the court.
“If I wanted any of that to pan out, I just needed to put that totally in the back of my mind and pretend it didn’t happen and just go on with being Gareth’s bro.”
The complainant was asked about women he had discussed with Ward through messages following the alleged assault.
The complainant said there were lots of “degrading” discussions about women in Liberal circles with Gareth, who outwardly talked about being attracted to women at the time.
“Women weren’t respected, and were seen as conquests or something like that,” the complainant said.
“In the hierarchy that existed in the culture in the Young Libs … Gareth was at the top of it.”
He told the court it was “cringe” and “gross” to look back on his discussions, but at the time he saw Ward as a significant public person.
“Apart from that one night, it was kind of like just having any other friend,” the complainant said of Ward.
“But then there was always the dynamic of knowing that he was in this powerful role locally, and that he was a very well-connected person.
“If I were to just say, ‘Screw this, I don’t want to be friends with Gareth at all’, I would be losing more than just my friendship with Gareth.
“I felt like I would be losing sort of a lot of my identity.”
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