Barry Cable may have to wait until next year to face a criminal trial over child abuse allegations that were upheld in a civil case 2023.
The 80-year-old Noongar man faced the Perth Magistrates' Court on Thursday for a police committal preliminary hearing.
The case has remained in front of the courts since 2019 when the victim first brought a civil case, after the West Australian government removed the statute of limitations preventing victims from taking abusers to court long after alleged assaults.
The complainant first reported the matter to police in the 1990s, however a criminal case against Cable was never pursued until after last year's civil case found that on the balance of probability he had repeatedly sexually abused a girl from the age of 12 for several years.
The matter sits with a Director of Public Prosecutions disclosure committal hearing ahead of a proposed trial listing hearing set for a further 10 weeks on. National Indigenous Times understands District Courts of Western Australia trials are booked up past spring of this year, seemingly postponing a trial date well into 2025.
Accompanied by lawyer Gerald Yin and avoiding questions from the media to and from court, Cable has pleaded not guilty to five counts of indecently dealing with a girl under 13 and two counts of carnal knowledge of a girl under 13.
In the civil matter which concluded in June last year, the District Court heard from the lead plaintiff that she had been groomed for five years from 1968 before Cable sexually abused her for the first time when he was aged 24 and at the height of his football fame in WA.
The former North Melbourne, Perth and East Perth star chose not to attend the civil trial with his lawyer last year.
He sent a statement to court stating that "inconsistencies, the surprise witnesses, and my inability to defend the case" behind not attending.
Police laid criminal charges on Cable in May this year over the alleged abuse of a different woman when she was aged nine in 1967 and 1968.
Five women in total have testified they had been abused by Cable.
Lawyers for the woman who won the civil trial added she had not yet seen any of $818,700 damages from Cable, who declared bankruptcy days before the proceedings began.
Following the civil case, Cable was stripped of his Australian Football Hall of Fame status, North Melbourne dumped his standing in its own Hall of Fame and his spot in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame was also removed.
He was also expunged from the for WA Institute of Sport Hall of Champions and the WA Football Commission Hall of Fame, however there has been no action taken over Cable's name listed in the prized Indigenous AFL team of the century side, selected in 2005, as rover and coach.
There was no mention of Cable's place in the Indigenous team of the century when the AFL issued a statement over his removal from the Hall of Fame, which also included revoking his AFL Legend status.
