Former Aussie rules football legend Barry Cable has walked free from court over historical sexual abuse allegations involving a young girl.<\/p>\n
Judge Michael Bowden found Mr Cable not guilty of indecently dealing with a girl aged under 13 and two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under 13.<\/p>\n
Mr Cable denied the allegations against him and walked free from the Perth District Court on Monday after being cleared of all allegations against him.<\/p>\n
The 82-year-old football great was accused of repeatedly abusing a young girl at his Perth home in the 1960s and cleared of seven charges.<\/p>\n
Judge Bowden said in his judgment while he was satisfied prosecutors established Mr Cable had a tendency to be sexually attracted to underage girls and to act upon that interest, tendency evidence alone could never prove guilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am satisfied that tendency was entrenched and existed over decades and existed at the time of each alleged offence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result of the delay of over 60 years between the alleged offence occurring and the matter being reported to police Mr Cable has suffered significant forensic disadvantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe delay has affected Mr Cable\u2019s ability to properly defend himself and reduces his capacity to fully test (the alleged victim\u2019s evidence).\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Bowden said records presented as evidence were incomplete, potential witnesses were now deceased and the 60-year delay in reporting the matter to police affected Mr Cable\u2019s ability to properly defend himself and test the victim\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI generally accept (the alleged victim\u2019s) evidence and have found that Mr Cable has the tendency alleged and I consider it more probable than not that she is telling the truth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not persuaded of guilt beyond reasonable doubt in respect of any count on the indictment and acquit Mr Cable in respect of each count.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking outside of court following the verdict, his son Shane Cable said they were pleased with the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first and only criminal case that our dad has ever faced in his 82 years and he has always maintained his innocence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our family, dad is always someone that\u2019s always inspired so many people through his sport, dedicated his life after football to community works and the allegations that were made were at extreme odds with the Barry that we know and love.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a stressful and chaotic period in our lives and for the whole family and today\u2019s acquittal hopefully brings some closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we do ask that obviously, mum and dad both in their 80s, I think they need to live the twilight of their lives with some dignity and we would ask that you respect their privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Cable faced a week-long judge alone trial in the Perth District Court last month where a woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, accused Mr Cable of abusing her as a child while his wife slept in another room. <\/p>\n
Mr Cable was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era and was regarded as a footy legend in Victoria and Western Australia.<\/p>\n
He played in the West Australian Football League with Perth, then North Melbourne where he was a dominant player in one of the club\u2019s most successful eras.<\/p>\n
He won two premierships with the Kangaroos in 1975 and 1977 and was the club\u2019s best-and-fairest player in 1970.<\/p>\n
He was also named in North Melbourne\u2019s Team of the Century.<\/p>\n
Mr Cable was inducted into the Australian football Hall of Fame in 1996 and elevated to legend status in 2012.<\/p>\n
In WA, he won the WAFL\u2019s Sandover Medal three times and played in four premierships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Aussie rules football legend Barry Cable has walked free from court over historical sexual abuse allegations involving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,187436,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-618897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-newswire-news","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}