‘He thought he was invincible’: Verdict looms in Barry Cable’s historical child sex abuse criminal trial

Barry Cable “thought he was invincible” thanks to his Aussie Rules football fame when he sexually offended against a child with impunity, a court has been told. The 82-year-old stood trial in WA District Court over four days this week, accused of indecently dealing with and attempting to rape a girl multiple times between 1967 and 1969. She was aged eight or nine and says the alleged offending occurred when she stayed at Cable’s marital home for several weeks. Prosecutor Kim Jennings said Mr Cable was emboldened by his renown. “He was quite famous within the community ... and he wasn’t worried about the victim telling anyone,” Ms Jennings said in her closing address on Friday. “He was confident she wouldn’t be believed.” Defence lawyer Tom Percy seized on the woman’s description of a big Scarborough house with a swimming pool being wildly different from where the Cables lived at the time. Mr Percy said his client had a humble, semi-rural dwelling in Gosnells with a pair of horses in the paddock, “pretty fun for a girl her age” and surely memorable, Mr Percy said. “The failure to recall horses, dogs, children ... casts enormous suspicion on the case,” the lawyer said. “The leap of faith that these things might have happened, even on the balance of probabilities, is enormously dangerous,” Mr Percy said. It was on that basis that District Court Judge Mark Herron found, after a civil trial in 2023, that a different woman’s claim Mr Cable committed historical sex offences against her for years — starting when she was 12 — were true. The criminal trial before Judge Michael Bowden this week, however, requires a finding to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Mr Percy said His Honour could “never be satisfied of these allegations” on that basis, with an “unfillable void” in the State’s case. Ms Jennings, however, said the judge most certainly could be convinced of Mr Cable’s guilt. While Mr Cable chose not to testify, his wife Helen Cable did and repeatedly said the girl had never stayed at any of their houses. Mr Percy said her evidence was “the telling blow in this case”, describing the 81-year-old as a remarkably sharp witness who could confirm essential information. Judge Bowden reserved his decision, saying he would deliver it no later than April 17. During the civil trial, four other women claimed Mr Cable had also abused them, accounts that Judge Herron said he also believed. Sexual Assault Resource Centre 1800 199 888 Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800