Cabra-Vale Diggers’ president loses job after slapping employee’s bottom

The ageing president of Sydney’s fourth richest club has been suspended for five years after slapping a young female employee on the bottom, and making her “feel like a piece of meat”. SEE THE CCTV HERE

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To the “old school” 79-year-old president of a Sydney pokie palace it was merely “pats” on the backside, in consolation to a young woman for a food order being stuffed up.

But George Taylor is now the former president of the Cabra-Vale Diggers and this week was suspended from running any registered club for five years and hit with a $6745 costs bill, after it was found he had twice slapped the 24-year-old junior employee’s bottom so hard it hurt her.

The incident, in May last year, was captured on CCTV and also shows Mr Taylor, who was aged 78 at the time, caressing her back for about seven seconds in front of two other people at a local cricket club function.

Former Cabra-Vale Diggers president George Taylor initially pats the female employee’s back during a conversation at work.

Then George Taylor is captured on CCTV patting the employee’s bottom twice.

The woman has since left Cabra-Vale Diggers — twice the centre of scandals where senior male board members preyed on young female staff — after working there for five years, saying she was “very upset” and “felt like a piece of meat”.

“The slap was pretty hard to the point that I was surprised no one heard it; if they did hear it they didn‘t say anything,” she said in an affidavit to Liquor and Gaming NSW investigators.

“It was a slapping sound. I froze and can’t remember how the conversation ended or how everyone ended up moving from the spot.

George Taylor at the Cabra-Vale Diggers Anzac Day march and service in 2019. Picture: AAP/Matthew Vasilescu

The woman told The Sunday Telegraph this week she hasn’t worked since because she suffers from depression and anxiety. She hasn’t taken the matter to police.

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While Mr Taylor later apologised to investigators, he initially told Liquor and Gaming NSW investigators “I don‘t think I done anything wrong” because he was comforting the worker after a food order went wrong. He also described the contact as “pats”.

“And you look at any sport now, when they say they’ve done something right or wrong, often there is a little tap on the backside, which I may be from the old school, but that’s my way of, ah, saying not to worry about it, everything will be all right,” Mr Taylor said, according to the NSW independent Liquor and Gaming Authority report.

George Taylor, centre, is suspended from running clubs for five years. No one else in this picture had any involvement with the matter.

The woman told CEO Boris Belevski about the incident May 30 and the club launched an investigation.

In 2014 Mr Taylor was on the southwest Sydney club’s board when the then-secretary Bill O’Brien, in his late 60s, was sacked for sending extreme pornography depicting bestiality and necrophilia, as well as racist material, to his female personal assistant and five other staff members.

In 2013 the then-president Stan Martin, 83, led a female bar worker in her 20s to a darkened stairwell before forcibly kissing her.

Martin was convicted of assault with an act of indecency the following year, fined $500 and placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond.

A subsequent appeal was dismissed but the original orders were varied to find the offence proven without proceeding to conviction.

Both Mr Martin and Mr O‘Brien were sacked from the southwest Sydney club and ILGA ordered all club directors and employees, including Mr Taylor, to take annual training on appropriate workplace conduct.

George Taylor walks away after the incident. The employee has since left the club’s employ and has not been able to work since.

Chair of the independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, Philip Crawford, said Mr Taylor knew very well his conduct was wrong.

“It is expected that a person in his position would have the ability to lead by example and model appropriate workplace conduct,” Mr Crawford said.

“This is the third time the club has been the subject of disciplinary action in regards to sexual

harassment and in the two previous cases, involving elderly male club directors, Mr Taylor, also a director, was privy to the matters.”

The club is the fourth largest club in the state for poker machine revenue, raking in $74.2 million from 450 pokies in 2018-19.

The club started construction on a $100m hotel with 140 rooms.

The club’s annual report also said Mr Taylor resigned rather than being sacked.

Both Club CEO Boris Belevski and Mr Taylor declined to comment.

Originally published as Cabra-Vale Diggers’ president loses job after slapping employee’s bottom