Another 💣 goes off for Cricket Australia

Boy, that was a tough read yet it was a brilliant article at the same time, Russ really is one of, if not the, best in the business. Bitmead should be rotting in a ******* prison cell, and another dark day for the ACB for years of covering these atrocities up.
 
Sep 30, 2008
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Shame, shame, shame ACB. Disgraceful. I hope justice can be served on those perpetrators still alive.
Jamie has already shown tremendous courage by coming this far…it’s a hard road, but once you let the 🧞‍♂️ out if the bottle there’s no turning back. He needs to go to SANO, then sue CA for everything they’ve got. It would be an easy case to run, I know a fair bit about how to go about that, I’ll be putting my hand up to help if he wants it, the Grubs need to be held accountable.
 
Beyond disgraceful. Someone just posted this link on the crimes board, am just so mad reading this. Whoever this Bitmead person is I just wanna reach thru the laptop screen, grab his skull and just bash it repeatedly into a concrete floor. fu**. :angry::cry:
I never knew about this side of Bitmead, I only vaguely remember him as this weird wrong foot Victorian spinner from the 60s. It sounds like his bowling style wasn't the only thing ****ed up about him. :(

I can't really say much more in addition to what has already been written here, from the outstanding journalism involved to the utter disgrace of the various things that have been alleged to the Sgt Schulz approach from two parties in particular and, finally, CA/ACB seemingly wanting to sweep things under the carpet.

Fingers crossed that people, and CA, are held to account over this.
 

staffonly

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Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.
 

CrazyJoeFevola

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Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.

I can't speak for other states but cricket in Victoria had a deep deep issue as far as this goes. I can only hope it's changed.
 
Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.

FFS .. that is shameful.
 
Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.
Geezus. :(
 
Sep 13, 2020
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I feel sick. This is horrific. Not just for the poor bloke but the probably the hundreds of kids lives he’s ruined on the way. I was on the ‘pathway’ late 90s/early 00s. Hatch Shield, Dowling then on the fringes of state underage squads. Even then you were warned who to avoid. Pretty rife.
Sounds like you are the same vintage as me .
We turned up at a Dowling game and our Coach became very aggitated when a group of older guys rocked up , apparently he got the parents aside and told them to 'get us out of there' as soon as the game was finished. It was bizarre.

Then you would hear the other stuff at club ranks . People clearly knew.
As a young fella just playing I dont think you get the gravity of it at all and you brush it off .

Its so sad and shameful the cover up and how many have been effected by it.
 
Too many sporting organisations and the like haven’t made working with children checks mandatory. Especially where it isn’t compulsory under legislation. It won’t solve the entire problem by any means but if you can weed out another 500 paedos nationally doing it, it’s not a bad result.

Too many heads in the sand or too much sand being swept under the carpet….
 

CrazyJoeFevola

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Sounds like you are the same vintage as me .
We turned up at a Dowling game and our Coach became very aggitated when a group of older guys rocked up , apparently he got the parents aside and told them to 'get us out of there' as soon as the game was finished. It was bizarre.

Then you would hear the other stuff at club ranks . People clearly knew.
As a young fella just playing I dont think you get the gravity of it at all and you brush it off .

Its so sad and shameful the cover up and how many have been effected by it.

Yeah I reckon I am man. That's pretty haunting, pretty similar experiences. I'd kind of not thought about any of this for a long time until today. I was lucky, area I was in and sides I ended up in, seems bizarre now but yeah you just kind of took heed as well as brushing it off, but we were warned on more than one occasion by coaches etc. in our set ups of who to avoid from other sides. Even then..you look back and think were people covering their own arses too? Were my mates alright? Are they alright? Did anything happen to them? It's confronting.
 
Sep 30, 2008
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Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.
This is obviously very close to home for me - when I read the article this morning I instantly felt sick, the abuse and the effects just rang true. Your post jolted me re a near miss we had with a with a paedophile umpire down my way a few years back, he was creepy and if you’ve been abused you have a second sense that can just detect these creeps. I knew the little vermin was bad, but he used the cover of a teacher…when in fact he could not be a teacher due to a grooming offence. When the heat went up he left town, to another school and was heavily involved at CV in the Umpiring Department. I complained repeatedly but got nothing, until he got appointed to an official role, when he was exposed via the compulsory WWCC which had avoided up until then by being a “Teacher”. He was never employed as a Teacher per say but as a “Consultant“ for his preferred teaching area, a nifty way of getting around the checks and balances supposed to keep kids safe.

I am sickened by the response from the former ACB executive, but I am not surprised, they should be treated like the creeps of the Catholic Church
 

The Passenger

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Not surprised about the cover up. The YVCA had convicted pedophiles umpiring kids. Many of the umpires on the sexual predator registry. Two were caught grooming young players and when reported to cricket authorities they did nothing. They even sent one umpire the following week back to the ground one of the victims was playing. When questioned they responded the cats out of the bag let’s move on. CV did nothing even when it was found that no umpires had working with children’s. Dozens of kids were effected over the years and nothing from authorities even after contestant calls and emails.
Unfortunately authorities of the day had no way of foreseeing how easy communication would be decades earlier (internet, email, social media etc). This has had a huge affect on victims ability to seek help, get their story out there or even just find out they weren't ones that suffered.

With victims inability to widely communicate in the pre internet days it seems quite obvious the prevailing attitude of the day was to just largely ignore the problem of paedophilia and/or let someone else deal with it and this has resulted in thousands upon thousands of lives being devastated, whether it be cricket coaches in Australia, missionaries to third world countries or the Catholic church.

The perpetrators themselves took advantage of this attitude and isolated victims to hide their crimes. Bitmead openly cavorting in front of children under his care would have bee quite rare. Not that it doesn't happen any more, but there is a lot more awareness of this issue and children have much easier access to a network of support.

The comments from ACB powerborkers in the 80s and 90s were buck passing of the highest order. Yes the current administration will have to deal with the fallout and management of payouts etc, but the admin of the day are the ones answerable for why they did nothing.

The way paedophiles were able to operate with such impunity is a huge stain and failing on the generation of our parents and grandparents and I fully agree with previous comments that those in charge who did nothing should have their names dragged through the mud through complicity, even if they may not have done anything illegal themselves.
 
Too many sporting organisations and the like haven’t made working with children checks mandatory. Especially where it isn’t compulsory under legislation. It won’t solve the entire problem by any means but if you can weed out another 500 paedos nationally doing it, it’s not a bad result.

Too many heads in the sand or too much sand being swept under the carpet….
These atrocities are a reminder that while we often bitch and moan about red tape and big government, legislative powers are often to protect the most vulnerable. We should remind ourselves of that when we go to the ballot box.
 

revo333

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We would hope this is all a one off moment, but we know it is not. The terrible abuse Rod Owen and others suffered shows both our winter and summer sports have been hunting grounds for the lowest of lives.

How does a coach/person like that have mates so high up that players are afraid to speak out because if they do then they have no hope of getting selected to play for Victoria.

No doubt it's not a one off, Victorian cricket is filled with dodgy characters and coaches from the 80's and 90's.
 

MC Bad Genius

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Apr 15, 2008
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Too many sporting organisations and the like haven’t made working with children checks mandatory. Especially where it isn’t compulsory under legislation. It won’t solve the entire problem by any means but if you can weed out another 500 paedos nationally doing it, it’s not a bad result.

Too many heads in the sand or too much sand being swept under the carpet….
I'm not sure what it's like in Victoria (I'm assuming that's where you're from), but the NSW legislation is clear that coaches, assistants and team managers all need WWC checks completed, regardless if it's paid or volunteer. The umpires/referees etc don't need them though, as it's deemed they only have contact with children while another adult is present.

Is that not the case in Victoria? Or are you talking about expanding it further?
 

Jamurp

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Absolutely horrific, infuriating and ultimately sad story.

The doctor got away with it, Bitmead is 79 so pretty much got away with it, and former ACB higher ups are just deflecting it away from each other, disgraceful.

Hopefully some sort of justice can come out of this at least.
 
What ultimately makes me so sad re. these cases is the far reaching consequences of these kinds of crimes. This Bitmead piece of scum ultimately murdered that boy/man (not to mention the other victims in Sri Lanka and India)- the man he was meant to be and become. And for what. Minutes/whatever for his perverted sexual pleasure and pure utter selfishness.

These crimes really need to be treated as seriously as if he had literally killed someone.

It is an utter disgrace our legal system and the lenient sentences continually given for sexual crimes- pedophilia or otherwise.
 
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