Durban - The parents of one of the women who accused former tennis great Bob Hewitt of raping her decades ago during a coaching session have branded their daughter a liar.
They spoke of the humiliation and embarrassment at the claims by their daughter that they did nothing about the alleged abuse when she told them as a 12-year-old.
Mike and Judy Sheehan, the parents of Suellen Sheehan, said they decided to speak out in an attempt to clear their names.
The couple spoke to the Daily News last week at their home in Pennington on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast where they have recently moved to from Johannesburg. They said they were angry that their daughter had told several media outlets they had done nothing about the alleged abuse.
“We have kept quiet about this in the hope of protecting our family and grandchildren but we can no longer do so while she goes around spreading lies about us,” Judy said.
According to Judy, 65, the final straw came when Suellen told YOU magazine this month that she was “going to make my mom sit in front of me and explain her actions”.
“I am prepared to do whatever it takes to clear our name, even if it means us taking a polygraph test,” Judy said.
Suellen declined to comment.
Mike Sheehan, 68, said they could not understand the allegations levelled against Hewitt by Suellen, because they had never left her alone with him during the time she was coached by him.
The first they heard of the allegations made against Hewitt by their daughter was when they read about them in the newspapers two years ago.
“She claims that she told us when she was 12 years old that Bob Hewitt abused her. That is an absolute lie. We never ever saw any signs of that and there was never an opportunity for that because Judy used to take her to the tennis courts and sit there and take her home. Also she was never coached one-on-one with him,” Mike said.
“After she made that statement we were forced to believe that everything else was a lie. I don’t know why she is doing this but I suspect she jumped on the bandwagon when the American girl came out and said she was abused.”
Judy said they would never have allowed Hewitt to get away with abusing their 12-year-old daughter.
“If this had come out when she was being coached back then anybody who knows us will tell you that we would never have let something like that go. We would have never let Bob Hewitt get away with that,” she said.
Last month the National Prosecuting Authority served Hewitt with a summons and ordered him to appear at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court on August 16.
Two years ago a six-month investigation by the Boston Globe alleged Hewitt had molested at least nine girls - some as young as 10 at the time - in the US and South Africa, after one of his American victims spoke out, blaming the alleged sexual assault for her resignation from the school board on which she had served.
The initial report led to other alleged victims - including Suellen - to break their silence.
Last year the International Tennis Hall of Fame suspended Hewitt indefinitely from its roll of honour after a team of American lawyers spent several months interviewing the alleged victims.
They also spent more than 10 hours interviewing him with his team of South African lawyers.
Mike said the lawyers also spent 45 minutes speaking to them.
“I told them that we could not speak for the other girls but as far as we are concerned there was no credibility to Suellen’s story,” he said.
While suspending him from the hall of fame, the organisation did not expel him outright because he had not been convicted of any crime.
Hewitt’s name was later dropped by the South African Tennis Hall of Fame.
The Australian-born Hewitt won 15 Grand Slam titles in his heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.
He retired in 1983, and was inducted into the hall in 1992.
Hewitt could not be reached for comment.
Daily News
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