Barry Cable’s brazen sexual molestation of young girls knew no bounds.

One Sunday morning in the early 1980s, while driving to the Channel 7 studios to appear on the iconic World of Sport footy show as North Melbourne’s senior coach, Cable reached across the passenger seat of his car and placed his hand “on the upper thigh” of his neighbour’s 11-year-old daughter.

It was one of three occasions Cable had offered to take the girl into town to watch the program live.

Known only as “VV” in a Perth civil trial that last week found the Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing minors, the girl – now 53 – recalled her fear of being left alone with the Kangaroos coach who had moved in next door in Avondale Heights during the summer of 1981.

On one occasion, according to testimony in District Court Judge Mark Herron’s shocking judgment, VV was in Cable’s spa with her younger sister and another friend when he “put her in a lock with his arms around her waist so that she could not break free” and “bounced her up and down … on top of his erect penis”.

VV’s sister, WW, also recalled how Cable “put her in a lock and then squeezed her breasts” and “pulled her bathers to one side and inserted the tip of his erect penis into her backside”.

“Although the defendant was wearing bathers, he pulled them to one side to expose his erect penis,” the court was told.

“The insertion of the tip of the defendant’s penis in her backside was extremely painful.

“She tried to get away from him and eventually he let her go. She said the incident happened quickly, but it happened often …”

WW’s friend UU, who lived nearby, was also sexually abused by Cable in his spa.

UU recalled how Cable “had a big scar on his thigh which looked like a shark bite” and described how the North Melbourne coach “pulled his bathers to one side, exposing his penis, and got her to sit on his knee.

“She felt his erection on her backside,” the court was told.

“The defendant held onto her breasts outside her bathers while he held her on his knee.

“He then pulled her bathers to the side and tried to put his penis in her anus causing her to get off his lap because it was ‘really uncomfortable’ …

“UU remembered being scared and embarrassed, and probably shocked.”

One of the sisters said she saw Cable naked five or six times when she was at his house.

On another occasion, Cable called VV’s home, asking her to bring a cassette tape next door that she had recorded for him.

“When she rang his doorbell, he answered the door naked,” the court was told.

“She said, ‘Oh my god Barry’ and threw the tape at him and ran back to her home.”

The three young girls, now adults, came forward in February this year after a Perth woman launched a civil damages action against Cable alleging he had molested her repeatedly as a child.

Their testimony helped sink the football great, who is expected to be stripped of his Hall of Fame Legend status next week.

But Cable was a monster long before he coached North Melbourne.

The main focus of the trial was on a Perth-based woman who claimed Cable had persistently sexually abused her from the age of 12 into her adulthood while a star player in the WAFL.

Cable’s attacks on ZYX occurred in his car, at his home, at bush locations where he used to drive, at the swimming pool in Thornlie where he used to work and even at the Perth Football Club where he played.

The court heard that Cable regularly took the girl with him “when he bought fish and chips in Kalamunda for dinner”.

“On the drive back the defendant normally stopped at the top of Girrawheen Drive, took his pants down and forced the plaintiff to masturbate his penis, often until he ejaculated,” the Judgement said.

“He described his penis as his ‘totem pole’. He complemented the plaintiff on how she masturbated him and showed her what to do. When she resisted doing what the defendant directed her to do, he told her that no one knew, that it was not hurting anybody, and that it was ‘our secret’ …

“I also find (said Judge Herron) that on occasions, besides forcing the plaintiff to masturbate him, the defendant also forced her to perform oral sex on him when he would tell her to put her ‘luba’ lips around his penis and push her into his groin.”

The judge also accepted the woman’s evidence that Cable had threatened to sexually abuse her younger sister if she was not compliant with his sexual demands or instructions.

A fifth victim was described as having a “family relationship” with the football legend.

Known only as TT, the woman, now 43, lives in Tennessee in the United States.

She said Cable was “sexually inappropriate” with her on three separate occasions – the first time in 1988 when she was eight and he asked her to shower with him.

Cable was naked and “asked if she wanted to touch his penis”.

In 1994, when aged 14, Cable massaged TT’s neck, shoulders and breasts, and “towards her pubic area”. She was naked when her grandmother appeared at the doorway to the room and Cable stopped.

A year later, Cable propositioned TT by telling her that she would not have to pay the money back he had loaned so she could purchase a dress if she let him finish what he had started 12 months earlier.

Several years later, as a young adult, she spoke to a police officer at the Child Abuse Unit. She decided against taking action because of the family connection.

She then confronted Cable after arranging to meet him at a cafe and told him she was concerned for his granddaughter, who was nearing the same age when he first acted sexually inappropriately towards her in the shower.

TT’s family was reluctant to pursue Cable “because it was a topic that no one in the family wanted to talk about”.

Judge Herron said he “found TT’s evidence particularly compelling”.

“She spoke in a careful and considered way, talking about matters which were clearly emotional and difficult for her, about matters which occurred when she was a girl and young woman which have clearly caused tension within the wider family and in her relationship with her parents,” he said.

“I readily accept her evidence that the matters about which she gave evidence occurred in the circumstances in which she said they occurred. I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the defendant on three separate occasions acted sexually inappropriately towards TT when she was a child…

“I am also satisfied that it was not uncommon for him to walk around his house naked in the presence of TT when she was a young child.”

Judge Herron said Cable’s conduct with TT matched his behaviour with ZYX.

“In each case the defendant exposed his genitals to a young girl at his house and was naked in the house in the presence of a young girl,” he said.

“In each case, he exposed his penis and asked the girls to touch it. The defendant’s conduct was brazen, occurring even when his wife was present elsewhere in the house. On occasions he arranged to be alone with the plaintiff and TT when they were girls, including being with them away from his home.”

ZYZ first reported Cable to police in 1998 but charges were never laid.

Claims of interference by detectives were later probed at a royal commission into police corruption but justice continued to elude the footy great until the lifting of a suppression order on Cable’s name last year that broke the case wide open.

It prompted the Avondale Heights trio to come forward and tell their own stories to Judge Herron.

Devastatingly, the girls who lived next door to Cable during his days as North Melbourne’s senior coach confessed that they feared their parents would not have believed them if they’d spoken at the time.

The families were extremely close, gathering on weekends, especially on Sunday nights, for dinners and movie nights.

“She (UU) did not report the incident to anyone and only spoke to her friend, WW, about what had happened,” Judge Herron said.

“She did not tell her parents because the defendant was so famous. Her dad had stars in his eyes when she spoke about the defendant. Her father told her that all of Australia loved him.

“He was also such good friends with her friend’s parents, and she felt scared and intimidated.”

But Judge Herron believed them all. Their evidence established a pattern of sexually inappropriate behaviour towards young girls, whom Cable befriended through his friendships with their parents.

“Through that friendship and because of his respected public stature those responsible for the care of the children trusted the defendant when their children were in his company or care. The defendant abused that trust,” Judge Herron said of the Avondale Heights girls that helped bring down a football legend.