Swepstone Says Partners Hid Drug Convictions in Australia Married At First Sight

Sierah Swepstone says australia married at first sight left her matched with Billy Belcher without being told about his previous conviction. Nine former cast members have now told the they felt unsafe and unprotected after learning that some on-screen partners had criminal pasts they were never shown.

Swepstone said she was cast with Belcher, who was arrested and sentenced in 2014 in Perth for multiple drug-related offences. She said she only learned about his previous conviction after the show ended. “There should be informed consent.”

Belcher and Swepstone

Belcher’s case sits at the center of the most specific allegation in the file: one woman from last year’s Australian series says she was not told that the man she matched with had a previous drug conviction, and Swepstone says that was her experience. She also said, “You shouldn't be left alone with a stranger with a criminal record” — a line that goes to the core of how far production can go when it pairs two people who have not met before filming.

Another groom from the same series had a past conviction for affray, and the bride matched with him was not made aware of that conviction. That detail widens the concern beyond one cast member and turns the issue into a casting process question, not a one-off dispute.

Channel 9 Response

Channel 9 and Endemol Shine Australia said they had “strong protocols in place to ensure participant safety and wellbeing.” The broadcaster did not answer the specific question of whether participants had been informed about their partners’ criminal pasts, and said its protocols did not include sharing personal or background information between participants.

Nine former cast members are calling on the show to improve its background checks and to stop allowing individuals with previous convictions or allegations on the show. That puts pressure on the production side of a format that films couples almost every day after mock weddings, honeymoons and the move-in period.

Panorama Fallout

The said it found some of the details in publicly accessible court records. That part of the reporting matters because it suggests the information was available before filming, while the cast says it was not passed along in a way that let them weigh the risks for themselves.

The British version of the show was plunged into crisis after Panorama reported rape allegations from two women contestants, and the men involved denied them. For this franchise, the latest allegations raise the same basic business problem: if contestants are being asked to trust the process, the process has to tell them what it knows.