FORMER Grand Slam doubles tennis champion Bob Hewitt was convicted yesterday of rape and sexual assault.

Judge Bert Bam, sitting in a court east of Johannesburg, South Africa, said he is satisfied that the two women who had accused the retired player of rape and a third woman who had accused him of sexual assault were telling the truth.

The charges stemmed from events in the 1980s and ’90s, when Hewitt coached the women as young girls. Hewitt, who is 75 years old, denied all three charges.

The judge said the striking similarities among the three women’s testimonies showed that Hewitt’s conduct was calculated.

Bam initially ordered that Australian-born Hewitt should be taken into custody, but later released him on £550 bail until sentencing in April.

Hewitt moved to apartheid South Africa in 1967 and became a South African citizen.

“I still don’t think he thinks he did anything wrong,” said 45-year-old Suellen Sheehan, one of Hewitt’s accusers.

Sheehan, who was in court for the verdict, laid a charge of rape against Hewitt in 2011 for a crime she says he committed in 1980. She said her former coach raped her in his car before tennis practice when she was 12 years old.

A South African group called Women and Men Against Children’s Abuse helped two other accusers come forward and petitioned South African prosecutors until Hewitt was brought to trial this year.

“There is such a striking similarity between the evidence against the accused and his modus operandi,” said Bam.
All three were gullible young girls, flattered by the attention of a renowned player, according to the judge. “Their submissiveness in the circumstances should never have been seen as consent,” said Bam.

by Our Sports Desk