A former NSW Police officer has been found guilty of five counts of sexual touching without consent involving colleagues, following a jury trial that also ended in an acquittal on one count and no verdicts on four others. The mixed outcome is central to an accurate account of the case: Matthew Stephen Cameron has been convicted of five offences, but the remaining allegations do not all have the same legal status.
Cameron, 33, worked as a constable at Northern Beaches Police Area Command when the events considered by the trial allegedly occurred. A District Court jury heard evidence relating to three younger male colleagues and returned guilty verdicts on five counts of sexual touching without consent. The jurors found him not guilty of another sexual touching count.
The jury's findings were split across the ten original allegations. Cameron was found guilty of five sexual-touching offences and acquitted of a sixth count of that kind. The jury could not agree on three further sexual-touching charges or a separate charge of sexual assault. Those four allegations remain unresolved by this verdict. The prosecution said it was considering whether to bring them before another jury; no decision to order a new trial had been established in the report reviewed.
The outcome also turned on the form of the charges. Prosecutors had alleged a more serious, aggravated version of some sexual-touching offences linked to Cameron's position and the relative inexperience of colleagues. Jurors did not return convictions on those aggravated formulations, but did find him guilty of five alternative sexual-touching counts. The verdict therefore established criminal liability on specified offences, rather than adopting every feature of the Crown's original case.
The three complainants were probationary constables at the time of the incidents described to the court, while Cameron had more experience. The prosecution argued that this difference in workplace position aggravated the conduct. Jurors rejected the aggravated formulations but convicted him of five alternative sexual-touching offences. This difference is part of the verdict; it does not erase the established offences or convert a jury's more limited findings into a wholesale acceptance of the Crown case.
ABC reporting said the allegations related to social gatherings involving Cameron and colleagues over a period when he was working at the Northern Beaches command. Evidence presented to the court described touching that the prosecution said was not consensual. The verdicts establish the jury's decisions on the five counts of conviction; readers should not assume every allegation described during the trial was accepted.
Court evidence placed the incidents in social settings involving colleagues who were new to policing. The prosecution argued that the contrast in experience was relevant; the defence disputed the allegation that the touching was non-consensual. The jury's findings separated those issues count by count. The convictions are not dependent on concluding that every workplace event or interaction described by witnesses happened exactly as the prosecution submitted.
The defence maintained that the encounters in issue were consensual. Barrister Margaret Cunneen SC argued that Cameron had a different account of events from the complainants and denied criminality. Those submissions were an important part of the adversarial trial, even though the jury rejected his position on the counts for which it returned guilty verdicts.
The ABC says the trial ran for about three weeks. The defence was led by barrister Margaret Cunneen SC, who challenged the prosecution's account of consent. Cameron gave evidence and rejected the sexual assault allegation. That charge is among those on which the jury did not agree. Its legal status therefore differs from the five touching counts that produced convictions; a disagreement among jurors is neither an acquittal nor a guilty verdict.
Cameron also testified and denied the sexual assault allegation. Because the jury did not reach a verdict on that count, it would be wrong to present it as legally proved. Equally, a criminal charge not decided by a jury remains a matter that might require further action by prosecutors, subject to the court's procedures.
The verdicts leave two immediate matters with the court and prosecution. Cameron faces sentencing on the five counts decided against him; the prosecutors must separately consider their options on the four counts on which jurors could not agree. The ABC reported that he was allowed to remain on bail until sentencing. Bail after a conviction is a court decision about his immediate status, not a reversal of the verdict.
An investigation into the allegations began while Cameron was still associated with the NSW Police Force, and he has since resigned. The people involved in the case were not all senior officers: the court heard that the complainants were relatively new recruits. The case has consequently prompted public attention to the position of younger members of a police workplace, although the verdict itself concerned Cameron's criminal acts on the counts decided by jurors.
Cameron has resigned from NSW Police. That employment fact is separate from his criminal liability. The court's verdicts came after he had left the force, and the public material reviewed here does not justify an assumption about all internal disciplinary decisions or the reasons for every organisational response to the allegations.
The case has a workplace dimension because the people involved were serving officers and the alleged conduct occurred in social settings connected with colleagues. Employment relationships can create expectations about professional behaviour beyond the hours and location of a formal shift. But those general expectations should not be substituted for the particular legal elements that a jury was asked to assess.
Consent was the central dispute described in the proceedings. For the five counts resulting in convictions, the jury concluded that the prosecution had proved the relevant offences to the criminal standard. That conclusion is not changed by the defence's arguments. At the same time, the acquittal and four unresolved charges show that the jury treated the counts individually rather than accepting or rejecting the entire prosecution case as a single block.
Three complainants, who had been probationary constables, gave evidence about their experiences with a more experienced colleague. The proceedings examined questions of consent, working relationships and events occurring in social settings linked to the workplace. The allegations involved personal conduct, and the complainants' identities do not need to be public for the outcome to be understood. The jury reached separate decisions on different counts, reflecting the evidence and legal elements considered for each allegation rather than a single finding about every incident.
In addition to the verdicts, the courtroom report describes the next steps. Cameron was permitted to remain on bail until sentencing, while the prosecution considered whether to seek another trial on the four counts left undecided. At the point of the jury's verdict, prosecutors had yet to make a public decision on the four counts left unresolved. The guilty findings stand on the five counts on which the jury reached that verdict; the acquittal and undecided allegations retain their separate status.
The trial was heard over several weeks, according to the ABC. That process allowed the jury to consider evidence and competing accounts presented in court. The length of a trial is not a measure of guilt, and the reasons for individual jury decisions are generally not available through a detailed public explanation from the jurors.
The ABC reported that each offence of sexual touching without consent carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail. That legal maximum is not a prediction of Cameron’s sentence and does not resolve the four undecided charges.
Cameron remains on bail until sentencing, according to the court reporting. Bail at that stage does not undo the conviction, just as a previous period of bail did not amount to an acquittal. It is a procedural status that must be described separately from the verdict and any future punishment.
The next procedural steps will address sentencing for the five offences of which Cameron was found guilty and any prosecution decision about the undecided charges. There is no basis at this stage to predict either the sentence or whether a further trial will occur. The different verdict outcomes, rather than speculation about future punishment, are the material facts of the court result.
Cameron now faces sentencing on the five charges that resulted in guilty verdicts. The jury's not-guilty verdict on one count remains distinct from that outcome, and four other charges ended without a verdict. Prosecutors may consider whether to pursue those unresolved allegations, but no decision on a new trial was established in the report of the verdict. The sentencing process will address the offences of conviction; it will not turn undecided allegations into proven crimes. The full legal picture therefore involves convictions, an acquittal and questions still unresolved.
