A former senior government adviser who defended himself in court against more than a dozen child sex charges is seeking taxpayer-funded legal representation after being convicted.
Craig Munnings remained unidentified for seven years while he faced multiple trials over allegations involving two girls. His name was withheld after a clerical mistake resulted in a suppression order being incorrectly applied.
During a 12-year political career in and around Macquarie Street, Munnings worked as an adviser to NSW Labor ministers Ian Macdonald, John Aquilina, Di Beamer and Harry Woods.
The 61-year-old, who is married with two children and lives at Woy Woy on the Central Coast, is also an ordained Anglican minister. He previously made an unsuccessful bid to become a Labor local government candidate.
Daily Mail can reveal that Munnings’ company, Crakyl Pty Ltd, remains listed on the NSW Lobbyists Register despite him spending the past two months in custody. The listing gives the business access to political decision-makers.
According to the register, Crakyl’s employees, Munnings and his wife Kylie, are authorised to communicate and meet with NSW Government officials for lobbying purposes.
Munnings had been scheduled to face trial several times from 2020 onward, but the proceedings were repeatedly delayed or discontinued after they had begun.
During the lengthy and costly legal process, he at various points said he had prostate cancer, suffered a heart attack and needed heart surgery.
Craig Munnings, a former senior government adviser who represented himself during a trial on more than a dozen child sex charges, is seeking Legal Aid after being found guilty. Munnings is pictured
Munnings, pictured, could not be publicly identified for seven years as he faced repeated trials over allegations that he sexually abused two girls. A clerical error led to his name being wrongly covered by a suppression order
After being convicted, Munnings swallowed a bottle of painkillers at the bar table in Gosford District Court in an apparent bid to halt or delay the proceedings.
He has represented himself since around 2022. However, appearing by audio-visual link from Parklea prison last Thursday, Munnings told the court he had applied for Legal Aid ahead of sentencing.
In Gosford District Court, Judge David Wilson addressed Munnings on the screen, asking: ‘Mr Munnings. How are you?’
Munnings responded: ‘I’m fair. But thank you for asking.’
He then told the judge that he had applied for Legal Aid ‘probably five weeks ago’ but had yet to learn whether his application had been assessed.
‘The other thing I should add is I still haven’t had a pre-sentence report complied,’ he said. ‘So that should be undertaken as a matter of some urgency I believe.’
Munnings has consistently denied sexually assaulting the two alleged victims, one of whom was 10 when the alleged abuse began. The incidents were said to have occurred during the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
He was charged in February 2019. When he first appeared in court the following month, a non-publication order was mistakenly issued covering his identity.
For seven years, Munnings, pictured, remained in the community while facing allegations that he sexually abused two girls. During that period, he also travelled overseas
Munnings worked for NSW Labor ministers Ian Macdonald, John Aquilina, Di Beamer and Harry Woods during a 12-year political career. NSW Parliament House is pictured
That order should have covered only the names of the two sexual assault victims or anything which might tend to identify them.
But when entered into Justicelink, the digital electronic case management system used across NSW courts, the order had erroneously included Munnings.
‘The name of the defendant was temporarily suppressed in a clerical error that has now been rectified,’ a spokesman for the NSW Local Court said.
Daily Mail understands that when the error emerged during Munnings’s final trial, a decision was made to leave it in place until the hearing had finished.
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Munnings pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual assault, four of aggravated indecent assault of a victim under 16, and one of carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 10 and 16.
Trial dates were set nine times between August 2020 and July 2026. A jury in one of three aborted trials was discharged after the Crown raised concerns Munnings’s opening address was prejudicial.
Another trial began on July 6 but was aborted the next day when two of 14 jurors could not continue. A fresh jury was empanelled on July 8 and that final trial ran for a month.
The victims’ evidence and their cross-examination by a barrister acting on Munnings’s behalf had been recorded for his first scheduled trial in 2020 and was tendered again for each hearing.
Munnings was found guilty of 14 child sex offences at Gosford District Court (above) on August 7, after which the suppression order over his name was lifted
While on bail, Munnings continued operating his consultancy businesses and even travelled overseas before being found guilty of all 14 child sex offences on August 7.
It took a jury four hours and 46 minutes of deliberations to reach their unanimous verdicts.
As the jury foreman began reading out the panel’s findings, a female court officer saw that Munnings had upended a bottle of pills into his mouth.
According to a witness who was watching the proceedings via an audio-visual link, the court officer said words to the effect of, ‘Stop! Don’t take those!’
The court officer then rushed to the bar table and asked Munnings, ‘What was that?’ as Judge Gordon Lerve turned from the jury and looked at the offender.
When Munnings said, ‘It’s just my prescription medication, my painkillers’, the court officer replied, ‘But you’ve taken the whole bottle.’
Munnings, who claimed to have swallowed only three tablets, told Judge Lerve, ‘My feet are giving me pain so I needed to take these pills.’
The jury foreman resumed delivering the guilty verdicts but when Judge Lerve spoke to Munnings he was slurring his words, according to the witness.
Munnings had repeatedly been set to stand trial as early as 2020, only for proceedings to be continually pushed back or aborted after commencing. He is now in Parklea prison (above)
After proposals to remove the suppression order and revoke Munnings’s bail were raised, Judge Lerve took an early lunch adjournment.
When the court reassembled, a sheriff told Judge Lerve that during the break Munnings had been seen with an empty unmarked pill bottle, falling asleep in his chair.
Fearing Munnings had overdosed on the painkillers, authorities contacted the NSW Poisons Information Centre and he was taken by ambulance to hospital.
After being discharged later that day, Munnings was transferred to prison.
Munnings first came to police attention when Brisbane Water detectives launched an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse at Woy Woy in September 2016.
He was a 19-year-old youth leader when he started abusing his first victim and an ordained pastor by the time he began assaulting a 15-year-old girl who came forward in 2020.
Munnings technically remains an Anglican priest until the Diocese of Newcastle is provided with a certificate of conviction, which will allow his removal from holy orders.
On Thursday, Judge Wilson asked Jessica Sanchez, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, to contact Legal Aid about Munnings’s application and adjourned the matter until next week.
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