Former NSW MP Rory Amon is facing a retrial over allegations he sexually abused a 13-year-old boy inside a car park toilet below the teenager’s parents’ apartment.
The 37-year-old pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse with and indecently assaulting the child at the northern beaches unit block in 2017, when he was 27.
The NSW Supreme Court retrial, which began on Monday, follows the former Northern Beaches councillor’s acquittal on a string of other sexual offences against the same complainant in his first trial earlier this year.
During that trial, the jury did not agree on verdicts for the two charges which are being retried, the new jury heard on Monday.
In the Crown’s opening address, the 12-person jury heard Amon and the then-13-year-old connected on an adult hook-up site in 2017, when Amon was a “budding local government politician”.
The court heard the complainant will testify that he wanted connection and was insecure about himself at the time.
It is not disputed that the pair connected on the hook-up site and moved to the message-deleting app, Snapchat, where they exchange messages and explicit photos.
The jury was told they would hear the complainant believes he told Amon he was 15, and that he thought he could be believed because of his appearance. Amon’s case is that the boy told him he was 17.
The court was told the boy told his parents he was going for a run and arranged to meet Amon outside their apartment block, where he lived.
The pair walked through a communal courtyard, to a downstairs carpark and into a toilet.
The Crown alleges they began kissing before the former MP placed the complainant’s hand on his own penis through his tracksuit pants.
Amon is accused of then pulling down his own pants and underwear and causing the 13-year-old to perform oral sex.
The jury were told the pair promptly parted ways and the boy told various people about what happened, including a teacher who made a mandatory report to police.
The court heard that in about 2020 or 2021, the complainant learnt of Amon’s identity when a photo circulated online of him. Before this, he’d known only of his Snapchat name.
In 2022, the then 18-year-old made a formal report to police and Amon was charged in 2024.
The prosecution said the charges which Amon was found not guilty of related to an asserted second meeting between the pair. It accepts that the first jury was not satisfied that there was a second meeting during which sexual activity occurred.
The key issue to be determined will be whether Amon honestly and reasonably believed the complainant was over the age of consent of 16.
It is not for Amon to prove his innocence, said defence barrister Matthew Johnston, SC, in his opening address.
Johnston foreshadowed the jury would hear that the complainant lied about his age to register to the adult hook-up site.
He expected dispute over the content of Snapchat messages, which could not be tendered into evidence due to their self-deleting function.
The defence accepted the pair engaged in sexual activity in the carpark toilet but said it is Amon’s case that “at no stage did [the complainant] ever inform him of his age”.
“If the accused had a reasonable and honest belief [the teenager] was at least 16, then that is an innocent state of mind,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, the jury began hearing the complainant’s recorded testimony from the first trial. It was replayed in a court closed to media and the public.
The trial continues before Justice Desmond Fagan.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491, and Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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