Charges against Australian swim coach Scott Volkers will not move forward after a court permanently stayed at least the third attempt to prosecute him for alleged abuse in the 1980s.
ABC.net.au reports that a Brisbane District Court found it would be “unfairly and unjustifiably oppressive” to continue to prosecute Volkers after a 17-year delay from when the charges were first filed. Volkers was first charged in 2002, but those charges were discontinued. There’s been at least one other unsuccessful attempt to prosecute Volkers, who remained employed by Swimming Australia and Swimming Queensland through 2010, according to ABC.net.
Volkers was one of Australia’s most well-known coaches, with his athletes including 8-time Olympic medalist Susie O’Neill. In 2002, he was accused of sexual misconduct related to two girls under the age of 16. The alleged incidents happened in the 1980s.
In 2011, Volkers moved to South America and has continued coaching in Brazil. In 2014, Volkers was coaching in Brazil, and Swimming Australia made clear it would deny coaching credentials to Volkers if Brazil tried to bring him as part of the nation’s delegatio to teh 2014 Pan Pacific Championships in Australia.
In 2017, Volkers was back in Australia and was arrested, but was granted bail and allowed to continue coaching in Brazil. The charges that led to that arrest were the ones permanently stayed by the Brisbane court this month, and all charges have revolved around the same alleged incidents from the 1980s.
If you get accused and tried once then hopefully the courts will make the right call. Twice means that it’s most likely true and a third time how do you even get acquitted for that.
It’s the same accusation, they just failed to prosecute the case in an acceptable amount of time and during that time important evidence for Volkers’ defense was destroyed. Volkers may very well be guilty but a fair trial is no longer possible.
There has never been a trial . The Qld Prosecutor has never had enough evidence to believe it could be successful in a court.
What the investigator / police unit could not out weigh was Defence had squad swimmers who still had their log books & the dates & multiple real time jottings.
During the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse , the plaintiffs surfaced again & QLD police were pressed into re opening the case .
I fully understand these cases happen & in fact the accusations were disturbingly similar to a very real case that I keep in my mind .