Port Elizabeth – Disgraced tennis pro Bob Hewitt appeared to have dodged the media as he handed himself over to authorities at St Albans Correctional Centre in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday.
Reporters arrived outside the prison at the crack of dawn in hope to get a picture of Hewitt, who will start his six-year jail term for the rape and sexual assault of three teenage girls who were his tennis students in the 1980s and 90s.
However, Correctional Services spokesperson Zama Feni said at the time that Hewitt had already arrived and was with officials inside the centre.
Feni said officials were waiting to receive a warrant of arrest from police so that Hewitt could be taken to the cells to start serving his sentence.
It is just over a week since the Constitutional Court denied the 76-year-old leave to appeal the length of his jail term.
Hewitt approached the State for permission to hand himself in at the St Albans Correctional Facility, which is close to his home at Addo.
This was approved by the Johannesburg High Court due to Hewitt’s ailing health and his inability to travel the distance to Johannesburg.
Meanwhile Women and Men Against Child Abuse advocacy (WAMACA) members travelled from Johannesburg to “celebrate” what they described a long journey towards justice.
WAMACA founding director Miranda Friedmann said that this was an iconic case and Hewitt would not be remembered as a renowned Wimbledon tennis player but rather child rapist and molester.
Friedmann said that wealthy and powerful superstars would get off for rape simply because people were unable to face them.
She expressed that nobody was above the law and Hewitt’s high-profile case served to show that.
“We must remember that Bob Hewitt was a great friend of at least two (of his victims’ families), the fact is that he had endeared himself, they trusted him and allowed their kids to go away with him, go on tours and basically have access,” said Friedmann.
“I’ll never forget Twiggy’s mother saying in court ‘I trusted you with my baby girl, I let her go with you because I believed you wanted the best for her.’ When I looked at her mother’s face I actually realised the kind of impact that child rape has so profoundly on everyone surrounding the victims.”
Born in January, 1940, Hewitt is a former professional tennis player from Australia. In 1967, after marrying a South African, he became a South African citizen.
Hewitt won seven titles in singles and 65 in doubles, including winning all Grand Slam doubles titles, both in men’s and mixed doubles and was central to South Africa’s only Davis Cup title in 1974.
His highest ranking was World No. 6 in 1967. In 1992, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, but was indefinitely suspended from it following his sexual harassment investigation in November 2012.
African News Agency