Craig Thompson Found Guilty

Former MP, Craig Thompson, who was head of Health Services Union in Australia, has been found guilty of using union issued credit cards to book escort services. This has been widely reported in the media and many tabloids have been following this story online. He was found guilty of dishonesty offences, but was found not guilty on charges relating to adult movies. The alleged amount Craig Thompson was reported to have misused during the period of 2002 and 2008 was reported by many online media outlets as a sum of $248, 449. He was not found guilty on all charges related to funds misuse as the magistrate stressed that he could not attribute some funds spent to be of a criminal nature.

The magistrate stressed that Mr Thompson had to have known that using union issued credit cards to pay for escort services was not allowed. However in relation to Mr Thompson buying movies on stays at hotels it did not equate to any criminality. The movies in question where known to be pornographic. However even so it bared no relation to influence the charge.

It was also reported by the media that the Madam who provided escorts to Craig Thompson was happy with the verdict. Diane Barker was always sure he had used her agency to book escorts as there is a system in place to check client details. She is reported as being the agency owner of Blonde Bombshells and CBD escorts. the other issue that has arisen from the case is that Mr Thompson had used parliamentary privileges to deny the charges. This has made everybody look at whether Mr Thompson deliberately lied to parliament and move forward for a motion of the powerful privileges committee to form an investigation.

Read an extensive article about the case written by theguardian online by clicking here