A Sky News reporter has publicly spoken out about how embattled former A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack allegedly taunted her about her Jewish heritage as a work colleague.
Caroline Marcus says that she endured harassment from McCormack, who last week pleaded guilty to two child porn charges, when they both worked at the Nine Network in Sydney.
As revealed by Daily Mail Australia in April, McCormack’s ex-colleagues have said the former ACA reporter, now 43, draped his desk in offensive pictures, including one likening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Sky News reporter Caroline Marcus endured harassment from Ben McCormack as a colleague
Ben McCormack conveyed his anti-Israel views working with Caroline Marcus, who is Jewish
He also reportedly wrote on Facebook his opinion the Jewish state was a ‘f***ing international disgrace’.
Ms Marcus, whose own family escaped the Holocaust in Romania during World War II, has spoken out publicly for the first time about how she says McCormack targeted her over her Jewish heritage in 2014.
The granddaughter of a forced labour camp survivor claimed that McCormack’s behaviour actually escalated after workplace attempts to find a resolution backfired.
‘After attempts at mediation failed to work, he was told by management to ‘tone it down’,’ she wrote in a column for The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
Caroline Marcus says Ben McCormack’s behaviour worsened in late 2014 despite mediation
Ben McCormack posted images on his desk likening Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler
‘But the harassment only escalated into brazen Antisemitism.
‘This included plastering his work station next to mine with vile cartoons depicting Jews as Hitler.’
This occurred after Ms Marcus had told him about her gravely-ill Jewish grandmother, she says.
‘I had even confided to him during our mediation sessions that my beloved grandmother, who sought refuge with my father in Israel after the war, was dying.’
Ms Marcus, who has been covering McCormack’s court appearances, recalled the dark days of working at Nine’s Willougby studios, in Sydney’s North Shore, from 2014 to when she left late last year.
‘I can tell you it was one of the most difficult and lonely periods of my life,’ she said.
Caroline Marcus said working at A Current Affair in 2014 was a difficult and lonely period
Ben McCormack’s solicitor Sam Macedone (pictured left) entered a guilty plea on his behalf
The former A Current Affair reporter described Israel as a ‘f***ing international disgrace
McCormack was arrested months after Ms Marcus quit A Current Affair, and charged with using a carriage service to send child pornography.
Last week, his solicitor Sam Macedone entered guilty pleas on his behalf during a Downing Centre Local Court appearance in Sydney.
The homosexual former journalist, who has recently quit the Nine Network, pleaded guilty to two child pornography charges relating to online ‘fantasy talk’ where he described himself as a ‘proud pedo’.
The charge of transmitting, publishing or promoting child pornography via a carriage service carries a maximum jail sentence of 15 years behind bars.