Former Moonee Valley mayor sentenced to three months in prison for sexually assaulting teen

A former mayor has been sentenced to three months’ prison and an 18-month community correction order after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a teenage boy seven years ago.

Cameron Nation, a former mayor at the City of Moonee Valley, was sentenced on Thursday over a single charge of sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under his care, supervision or authority.

The Age can report the details of the case after several media outlets successfully fought to revoke a suppression order that was first placed over the matter in December last year.

The incident occurred in December 2019, and Nation was charged by police in October last year. He pleaded guilty to the charge at a court appearance earlier this month.

Nation sobbed in the front row of the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court as magistrate Michelle Mykytowycz handed down her decision on Thursday. He was taken into custody after the hearing.

Defence lawyer Sam Norton indicated to the court his intention to appeal the sentence and seek bail for his client.

The court heard that Nation was formerly a director and head coach of three aquatic clubs in Melbourne’s north-west. He met the victim when the victim was eight or nine years old and was training as a competitive swimmer.

The victim later gained casual employment as an assistant swim coach between November 2018 until March 2020 while still a teenager, where Nation acted as his boss.

Nation and the victim initially began communicating over text and via social media after the former mayor got in touch to congratulate the teenager for “coming out” as gay.

This progressed to discussions that were sometimes of a sexual nature. The prosecution said this included Nation expressing interest in taking the victim to a gay club to “show him the ropes”.

The teenage boy later told police that this correspondence made him feel there were “no real professional boundaries between us, and it made me trust him more”.

The sexual assault took place in the early hours of the morning on December 15 at Nation’s residence, after the victim had been attending a nearby house party.

Nation, then aged 36, invited the 17-year-old back to his house for “kick-ons”, where the pair inhaled nitrous oxide in the living room.

“This made me feel really spaced out, like I had no control over my body,” the victim later told police.