The ACT’s former attorney-general Gordon Ramsay is facing a raft of new charges after he was arrested last year for grooming a young person.
The arrest sent shock waves through Canberra when Mr Ramsay was initially charged in October.
He was to have been committed to trial in the ACT Supreme Court today, but instead his lawyers turned up to court to ask for more time to prepare the case.
That’s because he is now facing seven more charges which include two counts of committing an act of indecency on a person under special care, and several counts of using a carriage service for child abuse material and to menace, harass or offend.
The offences all relate to the same alleged victim.
Magistrate Jane Campbell also pointed out the new charges relate to events that occurred after the boy turned 16.
Brief of evidence thousands of pages long
All of the alleged offences are now said to have occurred between 2022 and 2025.
A redacted statement of facts, released before the new charges were laid, alleged Mr Ramsay groomed the boy with dinners and alcohol, telling him he was special, before requesting increasingly sexualised images.
It’s alleged the pair began communicating on Instagram, with weekend catch ups and phone calls.
Among the allegations are claims Mr Ramsay continually pushed the boundaries, first asking for photos with the boy clothed, and later asking him to take pictures of himself in his underwear.
Police allege that when the boy’s parents mentioned going to the police, Mr Ramsay messaged the boy suggesting they needed to delete the images.
Prosecutors told the court today it had taken a while to lay the new charges because the brief was 7,000 pages long.
Gordon Ramsay (right) walking outside the ACT courts in December. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
Gordon Ramsay was the ACT attorney-general between 2016 and 2020, when he lost his seat in an election.
He then became chief executive officer of the Cultural Facilities Corporation, which oversees the Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra Museum and Gallery, and ACT historic places.
Mr Ramsay was suspended without pay from the position when he was charged with the current offences.
Before his stint in politics, he had been a minister in the Uniting Church in Sydney and from 1997 at Kippax Uniting Church in Canberra.
