Fronting Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday, disgraced former A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack pleaded guilty to two child pornography charges.
A statement of facts tendered to court reveals a series of explicit conversations that McCormack had with another adult about child pornography and sexual fantasies involving young boys, The Daily Telegraph reports.
McCormack—who went by the username Oz4skinboi—exchanged dozens of explicit messages via Skype from April 2015 to February 2017.
“The communications amount to child pornography,” the statement of facts said, ABC reports.
“The accused was using the user name “oz4skinboi” and during the communications outlined his sexual interest in young boys.”
On January 1, 2017, the other man asked McCormack: “U eva think u’ll play with one? Or just fantasy?” to which McCormack replied: “I’d love to”.
The man also asked McCormack if he would always “be a p,” and the journalist responded: “Yep, U … I’ll always have the attraction … They are beautiful”.
McCormack has pleaded guilty to two counts of using a carriage service to transmit, publish or promote child porn in a new agreed statement of facts tendered in court.
His lawyer, Sam Macedone, told reporters that McCormack had “always admitted to what he’s done, however the facts weren’t exactly correct”.
“I just wanted to make it quite clear that were never any images that were traded between Ben and anyone else of any child exploitation material,” he said.
“It was nothing more than fantasy talk, but no transporting of images.
“That’s what I wanted, that’s what we’ve got, so we’re now pleading guilty and we’ll move on from there.”
McCormack was arrested in Sydney on April 6, after raids of his workplace and home.
The senior journalist was released on bail and later admitted to a private hospital for mental health treatment.
He was suspended from all duties at Channel 9, and the network has confirmed that the reporter no longer works for the station.
McCormack is set to next appear in court on Friday, October 6. His charges carry up to 15 years in jail.
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