Victims of a rapist ex-MP have laid bare their suffering as a retired frontbencher backs her disgraced colleague.

Gareth Ward returned to the NSW District Court on Friday for a sentence hearing after the former state families minister was found guilty of sexually assaulting a political staffer in 2015 and sexually abusing a drunken 18-year-old in 2013.

Dressed in prison greens, the 44-year-old watched via video link from jail as his victims lamented his impact on their lives.

"No one has emerged from this without loss," the former staffer said in his statement.

"If I could speak to my seven-year-old self, I would tell him not to waste his time dreaming of politics.

"Pursuing that path ultimately led me here - a broken, lonely man."

Former local government minister Shelley Hancock, wh

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