Yet another case of predatory behaviour by sports people in authority over young boys. Peter Roebuck committed suicide in S. Africa by jumping out of his hotel window after being questioned by police about drugging and sexually assaulting a young boy. Many people must have known anout his behaviour.
He wrote very well and I always enjoyed his articles. But he had some dark secrets and they are not very pretty. In 2001 he was found guilty of caning 3 young S. African cricketers he was training.
Daily Telegraph Australia: In 2001, the former Somerset cricket captain was given a suspended jail sentence after admitting caning three young cricketers he had offered to coach. Roebuck, of Exmouth in Devon, pleaded guilty to three charges of common assault involving three South African teenagers between 1 April and 31 May, 1999. He had pleaded not guilty to three counts of causing actual bodily harm, which was accepted by the prosecution. Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail for each count, with the sentences suspended for two years, at Taunton Crown Court. Judge Graham Hume Jones told Roebuck he had abused his power and influence over the boys, who were far from home and far from friends and family.
Update! I see that tributes, and here, are flowing in about his writing and his cricket career. But I am afraid that whatever he may have done well, his sexual predations and the lives of all the young people he has traumatised is too heavy a price.
Better that he had never written a single word if that would have meant that his horrible behaviour to young cricketers under his authority could have been avoided.
Now while covering the Australian cricket tour of South Africa:
Sport 24: Renowned cricket writer Peter Roebuck plunged to his death from a hotel window in South Africa after being questioned by police about an alleged sexual assault, his employer said on Monday.
The English-born Roebuck, 55 and a former first-class cricketer, was covering the ongoing Test series between South Africa and Australia when he died on Saturday night.
South African police confirmed he committed suicide and the Australian newspaper group he worked for, Fairfax Media, said he fell to his death from the Southern Sun Hotel in Cape Town.
Roebuck had written on cricket for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne since 1984, and the newspapers said his death followed questioning by police from the sexual crimes unit about an alleged sexual assault.
They provided no further details although The Australian newspaper said the allegations involved an incident last week.
The blogosphere reports that “Roebuck was being quizzed for alleged sexual assault after drugging a young boy”. Vexnews writes about ” the widespread gossip in media circles that Peter Roebuck was an exploitative sexual predator who used his money and clout to have his way with the poorest and most desperate of kids who wanted a way out of poverty and a chance to play cricket at an elite level that Roebuck was tempting them with. We’re not certain that pedophile is the right word for him technically, as we are only aware of him preying on kids above the age of consent, but his behaviour certainly sounds creepy, exploitative and disturbing and it seems that his employers at Fairfax and the ABC knew his form and knew that it continued until the present day. …. Suggestions that he was gay have circulated since his playing days, but if true he has never acknowledged it. In any case, he did not crave partners on an equal footing but followers.”
Sad … incredibly sad for his victims and for me that a talented cricketer and writer was also plagued by the demons which led to such horrible behaviour.
Better that he had never written a single word if that would have meant that his horrible behaviour to young cricketers under his authority could have been avoided.
Tags: Australia, Cape Town, Fairfax Media, Peter Roebuck, sexual assault, South Africa, suicide
The k2p blog 
November 15, 2011 at 1:46 am
According to the ABC reporter Jim Maxwell Roebuck was being questioned about a six-day-old allegation of sexual assault by a 26-year-old man. Nothing about about drugging boys. Where did this come from?
November 15, 2011 at 7:19 am
Dear Ktwop,
Finally, I have been able to read a balanced and informed piece on peter roebuck.
Thank you so much for putting this together.
I have been trying for years to get through to the Fairfax media on this issue, but they continually censored me.
It is most unfortunate that he died in the way he did, but his appalling behaviour cannot be excused.
The crying shame is that all the children he preyed on were vulnerable & disadvantaged in one form or another. The balance of power is so disproportionate that his crimes are particularly sickening.
Although there have been but a few people to come forward, I wonder just how many people he actually abused/molested that we will never hear about.
On the subject of his writing, I found him to be an extremely biased writer, with his prejudices shining clearly through, and he was most verbose, so criminal or not, I don’t actually understand why people even liked him.
Anyway, thank you once again for writing this piece.
Slomes