An anti-corruption case being heard at the Independent Commission Against corruption had became all the more controversial when Ryde Mayor Ivan Petch was revealed planning to expose porn CD's owned by then General manager John Neish.

The plan to release the pornographic CDs was revealed through a taped conversation between Mr Petch and council lawyer Bryan Belling. In the taped interview, Mr Petch and Atty Belling went about the details of their steps to have the pornographic CD's work for their advantage in the case.

Atty Belling described the pornographic CDs as "manna from heaven" while both of them bragged that they have numerous media contacts to help them spread the information.

In the taped conversation played during the ICAC hearing, Mr Petch said, "He should come and have a quick talk to me and have his resignation ready, because if this goes to the national press, which will quite accidentally happen, it will be everywhere, his name. he will have to leave town because not only will he not get a job in local government but his standing, personal standing in the community, will be at an all-time low."

Atty Belling said that they never approached the press to leak the information they got but a reporter from The North Shore Times which is owned by News Corporation Australia and publisher of The Australian contradicted this claim.

In order to support the reporter's statement the court played another recorded conversation between Mr Petch and the reporter.

Mr Petch told the reporter, "you know what Neish does in his after hours when he's doing nothing? He surfs the net for porn."

Mr Petch then met with the reporter and handed him the pornographic CDs but the newspaper where the reporter works for did not buy the story saying that the information was "not appropriate" as they "could not trust the veracity of the information given."

In a report from The Australian, Mr Petch had resorted to this tactics in his desire to sack Mr Neish as soon as possible. Mr Petch thought that leaking the information to the "national press" will destroy Mr Neish absolutely. Mr Petch had been devoting most of his time to convince court that Mr Neish should be removed from his $320,000 a year parole after he allegedly delayed a construction project he and other councilors opposed.

Mr Neish on the other hand admitted he accessed "adult websites" when he is at home through the computer issued to him by the council but clarified that there was nothing illegal with what he was doing.