Bob Hewitt responds to allegations leveled against him

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

We have received a statement, attributed to former tennis ace Bob Hewitt, regarding allegations which have been made against him. It was e-mailed to Algoa FM News on Monday, December 10, 2012. Below are excepts of his statement:

In response to the allegations by a Ms Suellen Sheehan, this is a statement that I would like to make to the public.

In the last 16 months, after the story broke; I have had many conversations with the family of Suellen Sheehan, and have been informed of many interesting facts. I also hired a private detective to dig into her past, which has also revealed some very interesting details, and may shed a bit of light on this person.

Firstly I deny vehemently all allegations made by Suellen Sheehan, the only relationship that we ever had was a professional one.

She accuses me of starting to molest her from the age of 9 years through 12 years. Well the fact is, my family and I were not even living in South Africa, but in Winter Park Colorado USA, until the end of 1979. My daughter completed her first year of schooling there and we returned to South Africa at the end of 1979 for her to start the New Year at school at St Andrews School for Girls in Bedfordview.

According Sheehan's ID, she was born in June 1969, that would make her 9 years old when I was playing full time on the professional men's tennis circuit and in the July of 1978, I won Wimbledon doubles with MacMillan/Hewitt. The following year, when she was 10 years old, Greer Stevens/Hewitt won the mixed doubles at Wimbledon. While playing from 1978 through to the end of 1980, I was coaching and playing some doubles tournaments with Heinz Guenthardt also full time on the circuit. I retired from the circuit at the end of 1980. I have Wimbledon trophies to prove this.

She was a girl that was brought into my tennis squad in 1981, which makes her 12 years old, by my assistant coach at the time. In an article in the Bedfordview Edenvale News - 16 Jan 2012, she claims that I "spotted her at a tennis tournament at the age of 9 years and offered to coach her". Impossible.

The squad consisted of about 20 boys and girls and she was never coached by myself one on one at the squad or at another tennis establishment, especially my private home. Her coaching was done by my assistant coach. I always coached the squad at old Johannians in Linksfield.

In December of 1981, myself, my assistant coach, his fiancé and my wife, took a group of 20 kids, which included 4 girls, of which Sheehan was 1 of them, to play the biggest junior tennis tournament in the USA, called the Orange Bowl. If rape had taken place, then why did she accompany the group and continue to play in my squad for several years after, with no parental watch.

When this story broke back in August 2011, she was interview by the Saturday Star, and she clearly states, that "no intercourse took place and that she was about 10 years old. " In the second article with the Saturday Star, she says 'no sex took place' and then in another article in the YOU magazine in December 2011, she claimed she "must have been about 12 when Bob first had sex with me" In an article in the Bedfordview Edenvale news, she claimed "she trained at his Bedfordview home, with private lessons at the age of 14, and he had sex with her". Again, I never coached her privately or in a squad one on one. In an IOL SAPA article - 16 Nov 2012 "Sheehan, who publically accused Hewitt of raping her as a nine year old, said she was liberated by the Hall of Fames decision". There are many articles in papers and on-line, where her stories have changed drastically, but there are too many to go into.

In a SABC TV news broadcast on Monday 26 November, her charge of rape that was laid at a police station in December 2011 against me, has now changed to sexual assault. Again, this makes no sense.

Well these are all the facts. And again I vehemently deny ever doing anything with Sheehan of a sexual nature or anything of the kind.