A former ABC radio presenter has pleaded guilty to a string of serious drug offences – including dealing meth and coke – as he told the court he had brought ‘shame’ on the national broadcaster.
Ashley Norman Hall, former executive producer of the national broadcaster’s flagship radio program AM, faced Sydney‘s Downing Centre District Court on Friday with the prospect of being jailed.
Hall was arrested in December 2022 as part of a NSW Police strike force aimed at dismantling drug supply rings operating across Sydney.
The court was previously told that he was arrested after he attempted to sell drugs to an undercover officer.
Police seized Hall and later raided two hotel rooms on Wentworth St and Bond St in the heart of the city.
Police said that during the raids they uncovered a stockpile of drugs, including gamma-Butyrolactone, MDMA and cocaine.
Ashley Hall pleaded guilty to a string of serious drug offences, telling the court he had brought ‘shame’ on the national broadcaster
The 54-year-old pleaded guilty to five counts of supplying a prohibited drug and one count of knowingly dealing with $87,820 in the proceeds of crime.
His charges relate to the supply of 8kg of Butanediol, 816g of methamphetamine, 85.3g of GHB, 662g of ecstasy and 78.5g of cocaine, according to a statement of agreed facts tendered to the court.
It’s the second time Hall has come before the court for drug offending after he was arrested in similar circumstances in 2019.
He previously narrowly avoided being sent to jail after police found a cache of ice, MDMA, cocaine, cannabis, LSD and the party drug gamma-Butyrolactone when they searched his 24th floor room at the Meriton Suites on Pitt St.
On that occasion he pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying a prohibited drug and four counts of drug possession.
He was handed a 12-month community corrections order on that occasion.
Ashley Hall faced Sydney ‘s Downing Centre District Court with the prospect of being jailed
Judge Penelope Hock, who is due to sentence Hall early next month, said it was a ‘tragedy’ he had not learnt from that experience.
Before he left the public broadcaster, Hall was the executive producer for AM, as well as working as a reporter and presenter for ABC Local Radio, the PM and The World Today programs.
He has been in custody bail refused since his arrest.
He told the court on Friday that upon his release from jail he intended to write a book and make a podcast to ‘give a voice to people who otherwise don’t have one’.
‘The last 21 months in custody have been torture, very difficult for me, but I have tried my hardest to use that period to rehabilitate myself. I’ve engaged with whatever has been offered to help with that,’ Hall told the court on Friday.
Hall was arrested over the alleged supply of illicit drugs after police seized drugs worth $600,000 from two hotel rooms in Sydney’s CBD
He described drugs as a ‘scourge’ on the community.
Hall also said he had brought ‘shame and humiliation’ on friends, family and the ABC, which he said he had ‘worked proudly for nearly 20 years’.
He also claims that before his arrest he was threatened at gunpoint by a drug dealer demanding $120,000.
Hall took the stand to give evidence at a sentencing hearing before Judge Hock on Friday, denying concocting the story about the drug dealer.
He also said he was the victim of a home invasion in 2021, but he refused to make a statement because he didn’t trust police.
Hall will be sentenced next Friday.