Football legend Barry Cable found not guilty of child sex abuse

Former champion footballer Barry Cable has been found not guilty of a raft of historic allegations of child sexual abuse.

The 82-year-old was facing a judge-only criminal trial over allegations he abused a girl aged around eight or nine in his family home in the late 1960s.

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

The alleged victim told the trial that Cable initially treated her well.

“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 multiple penetrative sex while the former North Melbourne player’s wife slept.

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

A civil trial in the same court in 2023 found that Cable had abused a girl for five years starting in 1968, when she was 12 years old.

The victim was awarded $818,700 in damages.

The judge said there was compelling evidence that the former footballer had abused other children.

Cable, who repeatedly tried to have the civil case permanently dropped and did not attend the trial, denied the abuse.

He was later stripped of his Australian Football Hall of Fame award after an illustrious playing career in the 1960s and 1970s for Perth and East Perth in the WAFL and North Melbourne in the VFL, and went on to coach in both competitions.

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

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