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Ben McCormack sentenced, fined over child porn.

Former A Current Affair reporter fined $1,000 and given 3 yr good behaviour bond.

Former A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack has been handed a $1,000 fine and a three-year good behaviour bond over child pornography charges.

In October the former Nine reporter entered guilty pleas to 2 charges of using a carriage service to transmit, publish or promote child pornography.

He exchanged explicit messages on Skype for almost two years with a man who was in Western Australia, but no pictures or videos were involved.

In giving him a $1,000 fine and a three-year good behaviour bond, NSW District Court Judge Paul Conlon said the talks McCormack had with the other man on Skype were ‘fantasising.’

McCormack was arrested in April, and subsequently suspended by Nine, but has since resigned.

This post updates.

Source: ABC

13 Responses

  1. Disgraceful! A friend of mine didn’t declare casual earnings while on centrelink payment. As a result he got a $5000 fine and 300hrs community work. But a paedophile gets a slap in the wrist. Let the punishment fit the crime!

  2. Disgraceful, you can bet if this was someone down the road who wasn’t in the media, the fine and jail would’ve been substantive!

    $1000 fine…. are you kidding me??? Probably a days work for him!
    Disgusting excuse of a system

  3. it seems unfair just a slap on the wrist. But he is paying a price. HIs whole reputation and career is over. He can’t walk the streets without wondering if people are judging him. He has a life sentence in a way, even if he isn’t behind bars.

    1. What absolutely disgusts me about that lame excuse is that it’s equally applicable to everyone who has ever been convicted of anything – but only ever gets trotted out to “justify” light sentences handed out to people with a bit of a public presence.

      What’s even worse is that it’s now so common and expected that it almost doesn’t need to be said – _someone_ will pop up and say it for them.

      If people must do that, it’d be better if they saved their sympathy for the poor bugger caught raiding the till once to suppliment their illeglly underpaid wage (& hit with the extra whammy of stealing “as a servant”), or the kid who’s gotten caught up in some stupid “3 strikes” mandatory sentencing law, or anyone involved some other minor or understandable infraction that has been demonised in the name of being “tough on crime”…

  4. Ok so Fantasizing to commit a crime is now ok,so if someone gets arrested on terror suspect charges all they got to say was they were only fantasizing the plot,what a joke this legal system is!!

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