Aboriginal leader faces rape trial

Aboriginal Australia’s top elected official today said “such is life” when a court in his Victorian home town ruled he must defend allegations of rape in a civil trial.

Geoff Clark’s first cousin, Joanne McGuinness, claims the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairman raped her on a Warrnambool beach in 1981.

Another indigenous woman is taking civil action against the 50-year-old former professional footballer for another alleged rape more than 30 years ago.

Clark has a record of criminal convictions and violence stretching back to when he was a teenager.

Last month he was found guilty of obstructing police and behaving in a riotous manner outside bars in Warrnambool a year ago.