Ben McCormack, arrested on child porn charges, directed gay incest film

A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack directed a gay incest film that shows a father performing a sex act on his adult son, Daily Mail Australia can reveal.

McCormack, who was yesterday charged with sending child pornography, wrote and directed a five-minute film about a young man's trip to a gay bath house in Brisbane.

The protagonist, who wears nothing more than a towel for most of the short film, is seen being pleasured by an anonymous man, who is later revealed to be his father.

One of McCormack's colleagues at ACA said people at the network were disgusted by the film - and revealed that he had planned to settle down and have children before his shocking arrest.

McCormack's movie, called Family Outing, shows a young man nervously walking through a sex club wearing only a towel as other men leer at him.

He then walks into a cubicle and is pleasured by a man through a hole in a wall. When the two men exit, they look at each other and realise each other's identity.

"Dad?" the son says, as the film ends.

The black-and-white film, filmed in 2001, was shot at an inner-city gay bath house in Brisbane.

A colleague of McCormack's at ACA has also revealed that the reporter had been looking forward to settling down and having children.

"Ben has been openly gay the entire time he was at Nine," they said.

"He was a single guy and a few years ago he was talking about having a kid.

McCormack's movie shows a young man nervously walking through a sex club wearing only a towel as other men leer at him.

"McCormack would often talk about his filmmaking prowess and in particular about Family Outing," they said.

"He would talk about it all the time. The storyline was a bit sick and made people around the ACA office say 'why the f*** would you do that?'

One of the film's crew told Daily Mail Australia that the film was 'highly successful' and was shown at film festivals around the world.

"It was confronting but it wasn't strange because I knew that Ben was gay,' the source said.

The source, who said they have not spoken to McCormack for 15 years, said none of the actors or crew were paid for working on the film.

Speaking of the accusations made against the Channel Nine veteran reporter, they added:
"The whole thing has shocked me. No one had a clue."

One of McCormack's colleagues said staff were left shocked when he was charged on Thursday.

"His arrest came as a real shock because we thought there were no surprises about Ben - he was open about being gay even though Nine is not exactly the most gay-friendly place to work. Even the chicks there are really blokey," the source said.

The colleague said he was assigned to chase down paedophile Robert Hughes in Singapore after Peter Stefanovic landed an interview with one of his victims, Sarah Monahan, who was a child at the time she appeared alongside Hughes in the 1980s sitcom Hey Dad!.

Colleagues remembered him as a reporter who would "get the job done and didn't have a massive private life".

"He didn't have anyone to go home to and he would hang around work until late," they said.

Sources said McCormack, 42, was "very close" to ACA's head cameraman Drew Benjamin, who has been at the network for 30-odd years, and drove McCormack away from Redfern police station on Thursday night.

McCormack was sensationally charged with sending child pornography using a carriage service on Thursday.

He was suspended by the network after he allegedly had "sexually explicit conversations" about children and discussed child pornography with another man.

His strict bail conditions mean he is unable to go on the internet other than for work, including social media websites.

He is also not allowed to meet anyone under the age of 16, other than family members - and even then an adult must be in the room at the time.

McCormack is also banned from communicating with anyone under the age of 16 and cannot go near playgrounds, schools or anywhere "known to be frequented by children."

He is due to appear in court on May 1.