D-Day for disgraced football legend Barry Cable

A former champion footballer who fought a slew of historical child sexual abuse accusations at trial is set to learn his fate.

Barry Cable pleaded not guilty in a judge-only criminal trial to charges alleging he abused a girl aged about eight or nine at his family home in the late 1960s.

The 82-year-old former Australian rules player is set to return to the Western Australian District Court in Perth on Friday for Judge Michael Bowden’s verdict.

Prosecutors alleged Cable abused the girl at his family home when she was staying with him and his wife, Helen, for about a month.

The alleged victim told the trial Cable treated her well at first.

“He was loving towards me like an uncle … then things changed,” she said while giving evidence in March.

“He started touching my body.”

The abuse allegedly involved penetrative sex on multiple occasions when the former North Melbourne player’s wife was asleep.

The woman reported the alleged abuse to police in 2023 when she spotted Cable on television, telling the court during the trial that it had “brought back memories of what he had done to me”.

All told, Cable denied five counts of indecent dealing with a girl aged under 13 and two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under 13 between December 31, 1966 and December 31, 1969.

A civil trial in the same court in 2023 found Cable abused a girl over five years from 1968 when she was aged 12. The victim was awarded $818,700 in damages.

The civil trial judge said there was compelling evidence the former footballer had violated other children.

Cable, who repeatedly attempted to have the civil case proceedings permanently thrown out and did not attend the trial, denied the abuse.

He was later stripped of his Australian Football Hall of Fame honours following an illustrious playing career in the 1960s and ’70s for Perth and East Perth in the WAFL and North Melbourne in the VFL, going on to coach in both leagues.

He has been dumped from the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and the West Australian Football Commission revoked the former champion’s Hall of Fame membership, including his Legend status.