A Qantas flight attendant and former police officer had sex with a seventh-grade boy at her home while his parents were away.
Mark Ward pleaded guilty to multiple offences, including possession of child abuse material, in Campbelltown Local Court this week. MacArthur Chronicles reported.
The court heard how the paedophile contacted the underage victim on Grindr in 2017 after he had left the police force and was working as a flight attendant for Qantas.
Ward then moved the conversation with the 14-year-old to Snapchat, where he sent him photos of himself in his old police uniform and asked him sexual questions.
Eventually, he pressured the victim into allowing him to visit his home for sex and when the boy again mentioned his age, Ward said, “That’s fine with me.”
Ward had sex with the victim in his bedroom, which was interrupted when the boy warned that his parents would be back soon, despite Ward’s pleas for him to continue.
According to court documents, the victim spoke out after telling a friend in 2023 that she had sex with a man “in his 40s or 50s” when she was underage.
To which his friend replied: ‘What the fuck? You need to tell someone.’
The court heard he pursued a 14-year-old boy for sex while working as a flight attendant.
When police were notified, they set up a sting operation to catch Ward creating a fake Grindr profile of another 14-year-old boy in his area of Campbelltown, south of Sydney.
Despite a nearly six-year gap between the crime they were investigating and their undercover operation, Ward sent a message to the profile asking for “nude photos.”
Ward then sent explicit messages and nude images of himself to the profile run by an undercover police officer.
Police then raided his St Andrews address and confiscated his electronic devices.
Investigators accessed her Telegram account and found messages that spoke of her attraction to underage boys.
Mark Ward pleaded guilty to multiple offences, including possession of child abuse material, in Campbelltown Local Court
Officers also found nine files containing child abuse material, including one of a boy under the age of 12 performing oral sex on a man.
Ward pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor, using a transportation service to send indecent material to a person under 16 and possessing child abuse material.
He will return to court for sentencing later this year.