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Former NSW families minister Gareth Ward will spend at least the next three years and nine months in jail for raping a political staffer and indecently assaulting an 18-year-old man, both whom he met through his position of power, in crimes a judge described as “deliberate and predatory”.

The 44-year-old was convicted in July of indecently assaulting an 18-year-old man three times at his Shoalhaven home on the South Coast in 2013 and having sexual intercourse without consent with a 24-year-old political staffer at his Potts Point apartment in 2015.

Gareth Ward will spend at least the next three years and nine months in jail. Credit: Rocco Fazzari

At Parramatta District Court on Friday, Judge Kara Shead sentenced the former Kiama MP to five years and nine m

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