Court finds Olympic swim coach raped teens, but won’t face jail

Former Olympic swimming coach Dick Caine has been unmasked as a serial pedophile after a judge found he raped and sexually abused six underage students during the height of his teaching career.

Former Olympic swimming coach Dick Caine has been unmasked as a serial pedophile after a judge found he raped and sexually abused six underage students during the height of his teaching career.

But the Hall of Fame inductee, now aged in his late 70s, suffering from dementia and dying of terminal cancer, will likely never see the inside of a jail cell for his hideous crimes.

Following lengthy court proceedings dating back to 2022, Judge Paul McGuire SC on Wednesday found the state had proven almost 40 child sex offences levelled against Caine during a weeks-long special hearing, which had been ordered after he was found mentally and physically unfit to be tried under criminal law.

Under the terms of the special hearing, Judge McGuire found the offences proven but Caine not criminally responsible for the acts because of his declining mental health.

As a result, Caine will not undergo traditional sentencing under criminal law but will instead be discharged into the care of the mental health review tribunal.

Former swim coach Dick Caine leaving Bankstown police station with wife Jenny and lawyer Sophie Newham after receiving bail in 2022. Picture: Liam Mendes

It is highly unlikely he will be ordered into custody given his extreme poor health and is expected to remain in his current palliative care centre until he dies.

Details of the case against Caine can only now be revealed after Judge McGuire lifted a non-publication order put in place for the duration of the court hearing after Caine’s lawyers argued he was at risk of suicide if the case became public.

Caine was not in court in person to hear the judge’s verdict on Wednesday, however several victims attended the proceedings and broke down in tears when the verdict was read out.

The women spent months giving evidence in court earlier this year about horror acts Caine had committed on them while they were students at his swim school in the 1970s and 80s.

They include multiple counts of rape, forced masturbation and molestation, sometimes at the home he shared with his wife and other times in his car or inside the swimming pool complex itself.

So blasé was Caine with some of his offending that he groped and raped victims in the centre’s gym while other students were still practising their strokes in the pool, the court heard.

Judge McGuire found Caine had a tendency to have a sexual interest in pre-pubescent and pubescent females and would act on those interests when given “sufficient opportunity” to be alone with the girls, the youngest of whom was just 10 at the time.

Judge McGuire said he was satisfied the victims did not report the assaults at the time because of the power imbalance that existed between them and Caine.

He said the evidence established that they feared his authority in and out of the pool and that their future in swimming was “in large measure, reliant on him”.

Caine has always maintained his innocence in past court appearances and formally entered pleas of not guilty to all charges ahead of the special hearing.