Robert Eccles: Jury finds elder guilty of four counts of sexual abuse
The state government will strip a Senior of the Year award from a prominent south-west Indigenous elder and junior football umpire found guilty by a jury of sexual abuse.
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The state government will strip a Senior of the Year award from a prominent south-west Indigenous elder and junior football umpire found guilty by a jury of sexual abuse.
Earlier this month a jury found Robert Charles Eccles sexually abused a 16-year-old boy over a decade ago.
Eccles, also known as ‘Locky’, fronted the County Court this month charged with nine offences; four counts of committing an indecent act with a 16 or 17-year-old and five counts of sexual penetration of a 16 or 17 year-old.
The 72-year-old had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The trial, before Judge Amanda Chambers, was held in Melbourne and began on April 3.
Eccles was represented by Victorian Legal Aid public defender John Blackley.
On April 17, a jury returned its verdict, finding Mr Eccles guilty of four charges, three indecent acts and one count of sexual penetration, and not guilty of the other five charges.
The jury spent four days deliberating before returning a unanimous verdict.
The abuse occurred in 2012 when the complainant was 16-years-old.
It reportedly occurred when Eccles gave the boy massages at his Warrnambool home.
Eccles is well-known in the state’s southwest, having been involved in junior football for decades and as a Koori Court elder in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court.
Due to that role, Eccles faced a committal hearing on the charges in Geelong in August 2023.
A month earlier, in July 2023, more than a dozen historic sex offence charges relating to a separate complainant were dropped.
In November 2021, Eccles received the Healthy and Active Living Award, part of the Victorian Senior of the Year Awards, with the reasons his “intergenerational leadership”.
A spokesperson for the Victorian government said, “We stand with all victims of child abuse and acknowledge those who bravely come forward to seek justice.
“There is zero tolerance for abuse of any kind and Mr Eccles’ 2021 Victorian Senior of the Year Award has been rescinded.”
Eccles will face court again on May 26, for a plea hearing before his sentencing.
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Originally published as Robert Eccles: Jury finds elder guilty of four counts of sexual abuse
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