Milton Orkopoulos used his position as a councillor and government minister to gain the trust of young boys before giving them drugs and sexually abusing them, jurors have heard.

During her closing address in the former Labor MP’s trial on Thursday, crown prosecutor Cate Dodds said one victim had been enticed in through Orkopoulous’ claims he was a “powerful mover and shaker”. 

The boy says he was around 11 or 12 years old when he first met Orkopoulos as a Lake Macquarie councillor who said he could get a skate park for Swansea.

“Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Orkopoulous) has preyed on (this young boy) who did not see the danger until it was too late,” Ms Dodds said in Downing Centre District Court.

The boy claims he met the now 65-year-old on four occasions where he was sexually assaulted in Orkopoulos’ car and on a bush walking track.

He says he did not tell anyone because he was young, scared and confused.

“I was only a kid. I didn’t see the seriousness of what actually was happening,” he told jurors earlier in the trial.

One boy from a home where illicit drug use was common said he suffered repeated sexual abuse by Orkopoulos but returned to him repeatedly because of a feeling that splashing the cash and drugs provided was the only way to make friends at school.

Orkopoulos has denied any wrongdoing, pleading not guilty to 28 charges, including sexual offences against four underage boys he allegedly supplied drugs to over a decade, ending in 2003.

The former state member for Swansea has also been accused of perverting the course of justice by asking one complainant to retract his allegations.

That man now says he was touched on the genitals and then watched naked in the shower while on holiday at Seal Rocks some time between 1993 and 1995.

Ms Dodds said Orkopoulos had used the same pattern of behaviour with his alleged victims, including first initiating the grooming by asking whether they had smoked cannabis and apologising later on when the sexual activity got too rough or painful.

Orkopoulos was motivated by his sexual desire for young boys and acted on those desires opportunistically, the prosecutor said.

He then would become more brazen after finding out his victims’ silence was guaranteed and moved onto harder drugs like heroin to groom the boys, the jury heard.

The Crown also relies on evidence from three other complainants, including one boy who alleged he was injected with heroin before being sexually assaulted in Orkopoulos’ car, to show the former MP had a tendency to act in a particular way.

“The only explanation for the degree of similarity in the independent accounts is that they are true accounts of what the accused did,” Ms Dodds told jurors.

His prior pleas of guilty to possessing child abuse material in 2006 and to supplying a year 12 boy with drugs in Parliament House were also relevant for the jury to consider, she said.

Defence barrister Paul Johnson said his client had admitted being a “highly flawed individual” who broke the law as a member of parliament including by smoking cannabis with young boys. 

He said he had been in a secret homosexual relationship with one alleged complainant, but claimed this occurred when the man was around 18 years old.

Mr Johnson accused three of the alleged victims, including one who was in jail at the time, of only coming forward to police in 2020 for financial gain.

“Is the prospect of receiving victim’s compensation such a weak or unlikely motivation for any of those three complainants?” Mr Johnson questioned.

“They clearly want to blame someone for what happened in their lives.”

He asked jurors to reject claims of conduct which would have been so visible that Orkopoulos could not have carried it out for years without being caught.

-AAP