A celebrated football club fundraiser with unfettered access to young children was hiding in plain sight when he embarked on a years-long campaign of pervasive and degrading child sexual abuse, a court has heard.
Adam Kneale was just 11 years old when the "jack of all trades" Graeme Hobbs, known as "Chops", first raped him at an administration building at the Footscray Football Club's home ground in 1984.
The rape marked the beginning of Mr Kneale's nightmare, which continued as Hobbs sexually abused him in other ways in the club's boardroom, staff toilets and change rooms at its western oval, barrister Tim Hammond said.
Hobbs also abused Mr Kneale outside the grounds, and gave him season tickets and took him on a trip in exchange for the assaults.
The abuse continued until 1989, with Hobbs eventually exposing Mr Kneale to a pedophile ring despite his standing as a valued club member, prolific fundraiser and under-19s training "staff" member, the barrister said.
"Footscray Football Club … effectively became ground zero of the sexual abuse inflicted upon Adam Kneale at the hands of Graeme Hobbs," Mr Hammond told a civil jury trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Tuesday.
"Hobbs made money in his role for the Footscray Football Club, but it is Adam Kneale who has paid the price."
Lawyers for Mr Kneale, who is suing the club for an undisclosed sum, allege the club ought to have known about the sexual abuse by Hobbs.
He was jailed for his crimes before he died.
Hobbs was not a sportsman or a parent at the Western Bulldogs, but rather, "a strange oddball - an older bloke who lived with his dad and hung around kids on the premises and gravitated to the under-19s", Mr Hammond said.
He was granted access to special tickets, season passes, medallions and club rooms - as well as children, the barrister said.
"We say that people should have asked: 'what is he doing here, and why has he got such special access?," Mr Hammond said.
The barrister alleged that by 1994 - when a local paper published a story about Hobbs' abuse - the Western Bulldogs knew Mr Kneale had been "absolutely brutalised" by him.
Lawyers for the football club have rejected that claim, and say Hobbs alone - who was a volunteer rather than an employee - was responsible for the abuse.
They say the club never received a complaint about the assaults, Hobbs stole the club medallions he had, and many of the assaults happened away from the club.
Mr Kneale - now 51 - claims he has suffered life-ruining mental trauma as a result of the abuse.
He is also seeking aggravated damages because the Bulldogs failed to reach out after Hobbs was convicted, Mr Hammond said.
"Not once did they say, 'we're sorry'," the barrister told the jury.
Another boy who Hobbs sexually abused at the football club is slated to give evidence in the trial, which resumes on Wednesday.
Former senator and journalist Derryn Hinch is also expected to be among the witnesses in the case.
Western Bulldogs chief executive Ameet Bains attended the trial on Tuesday.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
