When the news about Peter Roebuck’s death broke on cricinfo and twitter, my antenna rose. Some odd details stuck out in first reports. The former Somerset captain, one of the best sports writers ever, died while being questioned by the police. No cause of death was mentioned.
Confirmation came soon. A friend phoned to say the 55-year-old jumped out of a sixth-floor hotel window while being questioned about a sexual assault. My mind jumped back ten years. In 2001, Roebuck pleaded guilty to common assault after stripping three teenaged South Africans naked, and caning them.
The boys were aspiring cricketers, staying in his house in England. He received a suspended jail sentence for that act and later claimed that he hadn’t understood the implications of pleading guilty. Odd, given his first-class law degree from Cambridge.
Then Roebuck shifted to Australia, enhancing his already impressive reputation as columnist and commentator. He made a second home in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. That house became a hostel for impoverished, orphaned boys he helped put through school and college.
One learnt he had spent around $500,000 of his own resources in helping out 35-odd boys from Zimbabwe and South Africa. He had “adopted” as many as 17, and referred to himself as “dad” and called them his sons.
The assault accusation came from a 26-year-old who had met Roebuck on Facebook. The accuser is a Zimbabwean refugee. Roebuck had offered to help him financially as he had helped many others. He signed himself “dad” in e-chats. The accuser claims Roebuck then sexually assaulted him in a Cape Town hotel. Five days later, the South African police were about to arrest him when he jumped out of the window.
There is a pattern there that ties in with what one knows of his life. Roebuck was a generous man who helped dozens of young men out of poverty, sharing his home and other resources. He had helped the trio he caned in England (and had helped other young cricketers before them). He did that in South Africa as well, after he left England.
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That generosity may just have had a few strings attached. It seems that he was careful about ensuring that he didn’t hit on under-age boys. There are no such reports in the public domain, though there is at least one other incident dating back to 1985, involving a then-young cricketer who is now a radio show host. But while steering clear of under-age boys, Roebuck manoeuvred himself into a position of authority with an assembly line of young men.
The concept of age-of-consent is moot, in circumstances when one party cannot refuse consent to a sexual act without losing everything. There is great apparent reluctance to talk about the possible misdeeds of somebody who was undoubtedly a benefactor to many. Apart from the bald police press releases, we have mainly been inundated with eulogies about Roebuck’s undoubted generosity and talent.
The cricket establishment and the sports media seem to have closed ranks in the hope that this incident will be brushed under the carpet and forgotten, once the inquest is through. It shouldn’t be. Rape is rape, regardless of gender; far too often, the sexual abuse of men is enabled by a conspiracy of silence because it is an even more taboo subject than the abuse of women.
Sports-related environments are often prone to sexual abuse. A predator may be an authority figure with an enormous influence on the lives of young wards. In Pennsylvania State University, a coach was allowed to abuse children for decades because nobody spoke out.
Did something similar happen with Peter Roebuck? Father-figure, cricket thinker, commentator, writer. What else was he? Why did the cricket establishment look the other way? One cannot help but wonder.