Former NSW MP found guilty on two counts in child-assault retrial

A NSW Supreme Court jury has found former Pittwater MP Rory Amon guilty of raping and indecently assaulting a 13-year-old boy in 2017. The verdicts were delivered on November 13 after a retrial of two charges on which an earlier jury could not agree.

Jurors deliberated for about four hours before finding Amon guilty of both counts. He had argued that he believed the teenager was 17. The verdicts concern the encounter in 2017, when the boy was 13.

The court heard that Amon and the boy connected through a dating service and communicated before meeting in person. Amon did not dispute that sexual activity occurred but relied on his claimed belief about the boy's age.

The outcome must be distinguished from the first trial in March. That jury acquitted Amon of eight other charges involving the same complainant but did not reach verdicts on the two counts retried this week. Today's verdict does not reverse those eight acquittals, and it is not a conviction on all ten original charges.

Amon remains on bail, with the matter listed for a sentencing hearing later in November.

He was elected as the Liberal member for Pittwater in 2023 and resigned from the NSW Parliament in August 2024 after his arrest.