Football great Barry Cable repeatedly sexually abused teen, judge finds
Disgraced Australian Rules football legend Barry Cable repeatedly sexually abused a Perth girl at the height of his playing career and there is compelling evidence he also violated other children, a judge has found.
But his victim expects to receive no compensation from the now-bankrupt Cable despite being awarded $818,700.
After a civil trial in the District Court of Western Australia earlier in 2023, Judge Mark Herron on Friday found Cable abused the victim over five years from 1968 when she was aged 12.
Cable began grooming the girl, who used to babysit his infant son, with sexualised conversations and unwanted touching before escalating to almost-weekly sexual assaults.
He assaulted the girl at a public swimming pool, the Perth Football Club change rooms and at his home while her younger sister slept nearby.
On multiple occasions, Cable threatened to sexually abuse the younger sister if his victim did not comply with his demands, Herron found.
The abuse triggered suicidal thoughts and caused her to start binge eating and using laxatives, leading to a lifelong medical condition.
Cable, who repeatedly attempted to have the proceedings permanently thrown out and did not attend the trial, has denied abusing the woman.
He has not been charged with any criminal offences.
The trial also heard evidence from four other women who alleged Cable had sexually offended against them when they were children in the 1980s and 1990s.
Herron said he was satisfied each of the women had also been abused by Cable, describing the evidence of one witness as particularly compelling.
The victim who launched the lawsuit, now aged 67, first went to police in 1998 but prosecutors declined to charge Cable.
She launched civil proceedings in 2019 after the WA government removed time limits for abuse survivors to launch legal action.
“As a child, I was unlucky enough to live next door to a paedophile, Barry Cable,” she said in a statement provided by her lawyers.
“I no longer feel shame for the crimes committed against me.
“It’s his turn to feel the burning shame … nobody should ever forget that he spent decades enjoying the limelight and spent vast sums of money fighting to hide the truth.”
Herron found the woman was entitled to general and exemplary damages and further compensation reflecting past loss of earnings, interest and future medical and psychotherapy expenses totalling $818,700.
She expected to receive “zero” compensation, her lawyer Michael Magazanik said, due to Cable’s bankruptcy.
“It’s never been about money for my client. It’s always been about the truth,” Magazanik told reporters outside court.
“If Cable had admitted publicly what he’d done, this would have been over years ago.”
Magazanik said he would be “shocked” if police did not examine potentially bringing criminal charges against Cable.
He said Cable had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to stop the case.
“He lied about it for years … he was too gutless to turn up to trial and face the music,” Magazanik said.
One of football’s most decorated players, Narrogin-born Cable was in 2012 elevated to legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
He had an illustrious playing career for Perth and East Perth in the WAFL and North Melbourne in the VFL, going on to coach in both leagues.
In 2005, he was named by the AFL as a player and coach in the Indigenous team of the century.
Magazanik has urged the AFL to immediately expel Cable from the Hall of Fame and other sporting bodies to follow suit.
The AFL said in a statement it “acknowledges the court’s findings today and has no further update at this stage”.
A spokeswoman for North Melbourne said the club would consider its options.
