Former champion footballer Barry Cable has been found not guilty of multiple historical child sexual abuse charges.
The 82-year-old had faced a judge-only trial in the Western Australian District Court in Perth over allegations he abused a girl aged about eight or nine at his family home in the late 1960s. He returned to court for Judge Michael Bowden’s verdict more than a month after the trial ended.
Prosecutors alleged the girl stayed with Cable and his wife, Helen, for about a month and was abused during that time. The woman told the court Cable was kind to her initially. “He was loving towards me like an uncle … then things changed,” she said while giving evidence in March. “He started touching my body.”
The court heard allegations that the abuse included penetrative sex on multiple occasions while Cable’s wife was asleep.
The woman reported the alleged abuse to police in 2023 after seeing Cable on television, telling the court it had “brought back memories of what he had done to me”.
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, relating to the period between December 31, 1966 and December 31, 1969.
In separate proceedings, a civil trial in the same court in 2023 found Cable abused a girl over five years from 1968, when she was aged 12, and awarded the victim $818,700 in damages. The civil trial judge said there was compelling evidence the former footballer had violated other children. Cable denied the abuse, had repeatedly tried to have the civil case permanently thrown out, and did not attend the trial.
Following the civil case, Cable was stripped of his Australian Football Hall of Fame honours. He was also removed from the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, and the West Australian Football Commission revoked his Hall of Fame membership, including his Legend status.
