Former state MP Milton Orkopoulos denies abusing boys,offering them drugs

Former state Labor MP Milton Orkopoulos has denied that he enticed underage boys to have sex with him by offering them drugs or money,telling a court he was “appalled” by the claims made against him.

Orkopoulos,65,is on trial in Downing Centre District Court accused of indecently and sexually assaulting four boys between the mid-1990s and early 2000s,including two who attended his electorate office to ask him about building a skate park.

Milton Orkopoulos pictured in 2020. The former MP is on trial in Downing Centre District Court accused of indecently and sexually assaulting four boys.

Milton Orkopoulos pictured in 2020. The former MP is on trial in Downing Centre District Court accused of indecently and sexually assaulting four boys.Isabella Porras

He has pleaded not guilty to 28 charges including aggravated indecent assault,committing an act of indecency,supplying a prohibited drug,sexual intercourse with a person aged between 10 and 16,and doing an act with intent to pervert the course of justice.

Giving evidence on Friday,Orkopoulos – who served as a Lake Macquarie councillor,the state member for Swansea and the minister for Aboriginal affairs – was taken through the individual allegations made against him.

The court has heard evidence from the four complainants,as well as tendency evidence from three others who made claims against Orkopoulos in an earlier court hearing.

Orkopoulos variously said the allegations made by the boys were a “fantasy”,“false and a lie”,“outrageously wrong”,and “fanciful”.

“One story may make an interest,but it doesn’t make it a career.”

Milton Orkopoulos

Asked if he had arranged for one of the boys to sign a statement retracting a claim that he had been abused,Orkopoulos said that was “just ridiculous”.

“I didn’t instigate anything,I didn’t need to have him sign anything,” he said.

The former politician said he had a consensual sexual relationship with one of the men who had given evidence in the previous court hearing,at a time that man was an adult.

He appeared to be overcome with emotion when his barrister asked if he felt any shame about this relationship,which occurred when he was a married man.

“That was the fundamental thing … I was breaking an oath,” Orkopoulos said.

He said it was bad enough that he continued to smoke marijuana as a middle-aged man,“but to break the oath to the woman I love,to a person who stood by me and who cared for me,was difficult”.

Orkopoulos said it was “one of the most shameful times of my life” when police found a written child abuse story hidden under his mattress during a search warrant in November 2006. He said it was “just words on paper”.

Crown prosecutor Cate Dodds suggested Orkopoulos had read the story because he had “a sexual interest in adult men having anal and oral sex with underage boys”.

“It was something that I was struggling with,it wasn’t that I had an interest,” Orkopoulos responded. “One story may make an interest,but it doesn’t make it a career.”

Dodds suggested that Orkopoulos did make it a career,and went about his life in the Greater Newcastle area from 1993 to at least 2006 acting on his sexual interest in boys. He denied this.

“You enticed underage boys to have sex with you,” Dodds said.

“No,” Orkopoulos said.

“You used drugs,alcohol,cigarettes and money to do it,isn’t that right?” Dodds said.

“Absolutely not,that is a lie,” Orkopoulos said.

The trial continues.

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Georgina Mitchell is a court reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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