AFL great Carl Ditterich committed to stand trial over historic sexual assault allegations
St Kilda legend Carl Ditterich has been committed to stand trial, accused of the historic sexual assault of a teenager in the 1980s.
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AFL great Carl Ditterich has been committed to stand trial in the County Court over nearly 40-year-old sexual assault allegations brought by a woman who accused him of the assaults when she was a teenager.
Ditterich fronted the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on October 18 supported by his wife and daughter, when he pleaded not guilty to four charges, including three counts of indecent assault of a child under 16 and one count of gross indecency in the presence of a child under 16.
The court heard Magistrate Stephen Ballek say the evidence was not “so weak” that a jury could not convict Ditterich of the charges.
“I find the evidence capable to support a verdict of guilty for these charges,” he said.
“Therefore I am not persuaded by the defence to discharge the accused.”
In September, Ditterich’s legal team had argued diary evidence in conjunction with the alleged victim’s police statements were “uncorroborated accusations forgotten for 38 years”.
Defence lawyer Ruth Shann said the alleged victim’s diary evidence read more like a “sordid account of a sexual encounter” with “no way for the prosecution to prove whether the diary they rely upon is fact or fiction.”
On Friday, Mr Ballek said the alleged victim had been an “honest and truthful witness” throughout the committal hearing.
“She was not caught out lying or embellishing her evidence in my view,” he said.
“It is common for there to be differences in a recollection of a sexual offence and it’s up to the jury to decide whether any differences are important, on whether they believe all, some or none of her evidence.”
The court heard the alleged victim had “blocked out what happened with Carl and hadn’t told anyone at the time because she didn’t want to ruin his reputation”.
Mr Ballek said the accused allegedly assaulted the then-15-year-old in a parked car in a commercial parking lot in Moorabbin in 1985.
The court heard the alleged victim had stayed silent for nearly 40 years with the belief “nobody would believe her”.
Mr Ballek outlined the details of the allegations against Ditterich, where the woman said he allegedly “put his hand under her dress and played with her breast” before touching her genitalia.
The court heard when Ditterich allegedly put the then-teenager’s hand on his penis, she attempted to get out of the car, before he allegedly said “stop, stop, I’ll stop”.
The alleged victim said he then “masturbated into multiple tissues” while she stared straight ahead, Mr Ballek said.
The court heard the woman’s mother had found and confiscated the contentious diary a short time after the alleged incident and told her she was “disgusted by what she had written”.
The alleged victim was reunited with the journal in 2016, and began seeing a psychologist shortly afterwards.
Ditterich has denied the allegations.
Ms Shann applied for a suppression order to restrict media reporting of Mr Ballek’s comments regarding the credibility of the alleged victim, however Mr Ballek refused the application.
“It’s a normal court procedure and it happens everyday that assessments are made on the credibility of witnesses,” he said.
“In my view, the comment that I made in part of my finding should not be excluded.”
The suppression order application was also opposed by the prosecution.
Ditterich played 285 games for St Kilda and Melbourne in the then-VFL during the 1960s and 1970s.
Ditterich was inducted into the St Kilda Hall of Fame in 2003 and into the AFL Hall of Fame in 2004.
He now lives in Moama on the NSW side of the Murray River.
Ditterich will return to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for directions hearing on November 18.
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