A chapter missing in Roebuck’s eulogies
IF Peter Roebuck were a Catholic priest, rather than a cricket writer, would there have been this silence?
The silence I mean is the hush by his employers and some close colleagues over what drove him to jump from the sixth floor of his South African hotel on Saturday.
In fact, what we need is not silence but some explanations from Fairfax newspapers and the ABC, of the kind that they would demand from the Catholic Church.
The bare facts of Roebuck’s death were known to media insiders within hours.
On his last evening, detectives interviewed him in his room over allegations of sexual assault. In distress, he called a friend, ABC commentator Jim Maxwell.
Minutes after Maxwell left, and with a policeman still in the room, Roebuck jumped from a window.
True, it’s only in the past two days that more details of that alleged assault have emerged, with reports that a 26-year-old Zimbabwean man accused Roebuck of sexually assaulting him after making contact through Facebook.
But as Maxwell confirmed on Monday when asked if he knew of the complaint: “I was aware of that a while ago, yes.” He wasn’t alone.
What was also known - and for years - to Roebuck’s employers and many commentators now praising him is that a decade ago he was convicted in Britain of the common assault of three of the many African boys he’d taken into his home, promising them an education or coaching.
In a statement, one victim said Roebuck told him: “I’m going to cane you now. Then it will be over and I will forgive you and, if I don’t cane you, I will feel differently about you.”
He then chose one of six canes in a rack and delivered “three forceful strokes”. The prosecutor added: “Roebuck then pulled the boy towards him, in what appeared to be an act of affection. He then asked if he could look at the marks on the boys’ buttocks, something which he in fact did.” Another boy was also asked to show his welts.
Roebuck claimed he was just enforcing discipline, but the judge replied: “It seems so unusual that it must have been done to satisfy some need in you.”
Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail on each count, suspended for two years, but in Australia - his new home, with South Africa - his career bloomed.
He was a compelling cricket writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, as well as commentator for the ABC, and the tributes paid to him this week by both organisations were lavish.
“A magnificent analyst and writer on the game,” declared ABC boss Mark Scott.
“An extremely gifted cricket writer,” said Greg Hywood, CEO of the Fairfax papers.
And that much is true. But many of the testimonials written by Fairfax and ABC commentators went further, giving Roebuck a fine character reference while avoiding any mention of perhaps its greatest stain - and of a possible explanation for a death some claimed not to understand.
Take Age writer Greg Baum: “He was a loyal friend who felt the pain of others as acutely as only the highly intelligent do.”
The only hint of Roebuck’s old shame and last anguish was this: “He fought to reconcile himself to his flaws, and it was the central drama of his life. He was tormented as only genius can be. The circumstances of his death attest to it.”
But the only hint of one possible “torment” was again flattering: “But he perhaps found his life’s work in South Africa, where he created a community of 40 underprivileged South African and Zimbabwean boys and spent pretty much every cent he earned putting them through school.”
The facts around Roebuck’s fatal jump were given just a couple of paragraphs, deep in the news, and buried under more kind eulogies.
The ABC’s Tim Lane, a warm man, was typical: “Through the shock and distress of his demise one delves, for succour, into the memories of the many good times.” No mention of bad.
Same with the tribute by former England bowler Vic Marks. Not a word of scandal, other than this: “He could not share the demons within and tragically went the same way as another Somerset opener, Harold Gimblett. And we are left to wonder why.”
We are? Well, only if we’re not told what such writers really know.
All this evasion raises this question: what else did Roebuck’s bosses and colleagues know about him that they haven’t said? And by their silence, did they give him an authority he may have misused?
These are not accusations. We do not know the facts behind the latest allegation against Roebuck.
We do not know if his abuse of three boys a decade ago was more than just an aberration, long repented. Indeed, boys he’d helped have praised him after his death.
Besides, wasn’t any harm he did overwhelmed by the help he gave?
All these are good points in defence of the media tributes to Roebuck. But how generous is this same media when the subject is not a journalist, but a priest?
