Roebuck groomed me to be gay before luring me
Posted by admin on Nov 18th, 2011
Zimmetro Ex-England cricketer Peter Roebuck who committed suicide by jumping off the window of a Cape Town hotel asked a Zimbabwean student who accused him of a sickening sex attack to bring a stick in case I need to beat you.
The shock revelations emerged on Thursday as Itai Gondo, 26, waived his anonymity to shed light on the incident which drove the cricket commentator to take his life.
Gondo told reporters Roebuck had groomed him on Facebook before luring him to a meeting with a promise to pay his university fees.
The IT student says he was unaware that Roebuck, who has paid fees for up to 25 other young Zimbabwean men, had been convicted of beating three teenagers on their bare buttocks with a cane in 2001, before asking to examine the marks.
Roebuck who was in Cape Town as a commentator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during a Test match sent Gondo a series of message on Facebook, signing off as dad and referring to the Zimbabwean as son.
Skint Gondo had turned to Roebuck after being recommended by one of his 17 adopted sons who live in the former Somerset captains properties in South Africa.
When their meeting was confirmed, Roebuck dropped a hint of his intentions: OK my boy, bring stick in case I need to beat you!
They met in room 623 of the Newlands Southern Sun on Monday, November 7, the same room that Roebuck jumped from five days later when the sex crimes police arrived to arrest him.
Gondo, who says he is receiving trauma counselling, is hesitant to go into detail about the night he visited Roebuck but he has told police that Roebuck instructed him to sit on his bed for much of their conversation, which allegedly ended when the former professional cricketer tried to fondle him.
Gondo claims that, when he resisted, Roebuck said, No, no, no, dont be afraid.
Then he pushed me onto the bed and before I knew it he had taken off his shorts and he wasnt wearing underwear, he said. I was in shock and told myself that this couldnt be happening. But I was so dumbstruck that I couldnt do anything. I tried to push him away but he was on top of me.
Gondo claims Roebucks ringing mobile phone halted the alleged attack.
The driver said he was outside and Roebuck got up and said, Im so sorry Itai, I dont normally do this. He kept apologizing and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of that place and go to work and forget about it.
He has ruined my life. Now I dont know what my future holds. I wish I had never met him and that my life was the way it used to be.
Two days after the alleged sexual assault, Roebuck wrote on his Facebook page at 12.06am on November 9: Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.
Gondo received a message from Roebuck saying: Worried bout u, hope u ok.
The Zimbabwean replied: Its funny how you ask me how I am doing as if what you did to me you find that justifiable?
So that was your intention all along? To lure me and pretend you were interested in forming some father-like relationship, yet your intention was to do the sick, pervert disgusting things you did to me?
Well Mr Roebuck, you can stuff whatever form of support you blatantly faked to be interested in. You have greatly humiliated me and I feel very violated, disgusted with myself, your acts were of the purest, sickest kind.
Gondo wrote again to Roebuck days later, telling him: One day the long arm of the law will catch up with your evil misdeeds.
He walked into a Cape Town police station and narrated his story. Cops stormed the hotel to arrest Roebuck but he jumped out of the sixth floor window of his room to his death.
The revelations about Roebucks dark secrets have shocked some of his adopted sons.
Integrity Maziwisa, 24, said: Peter did that? Thats terrible, thats really bad. I think it gives different character of the man that we knew.
Nobody is perfect. Im just surprised.
Others told of how Roebuck, who they lovingly referred to as dad, was incredibly generous and that their involvement with him was platonic.
FFS. The race card. The gender card. Now the sexual orientation card. Noone cares if he was gay. If he had consentual sex with men that's fine. But he allegedly is a rapist or at least an attempted rapist. He allegedly sexually attacked poor vulnerable and desperate young men who he lured into contact with him with huge promises.According to Derryn Hinch, all we owe the dead is the truth. these points come out of the article below. Feel free to disagree.
the victim is 26 and not underage
he approached Roebuck asking for money
he knew Roebuck had a rep for being bent and having disgusting proclivities
he didnt get beaten by a stick or a bat
he spent two hours! in the hotel room before he decided to leave
the facebook page in the newspaper is not a screenshot but an artist impression
and the biggest problem the article has? Its not a police report. Its a newspaper article in a newspaper thats in a circulation war with Roebuck's employer. Until there is a coronial, then who knows if the SouthA frican police didn't do a Steve Biko**.
On the surface it does look as if Roebuck used his power and money as leverage in a sick and depraved manner. But That stuff goes on all the time, on casting couches, in TV stations, in politics. It even happened to Leanne Edelston*.
There is no mention of him being a pedofile or as went un-censored here "kiddy fiddler". The outrage is because Robeuck is alleged to be a androtop, woopsie, or purse carrier. And in the world of Tonearm or Brutus, thats disgusting.
So lets see what comes out of Police Investigations and any coronial enquiries.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/m...mories-for-leanne-edelsten-20090911-fkuf.html
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko
It's the allegation that he used his position of power in the hope gaining a bit on the side that's the concern. If proven then is reputation should be forever tarnished.
Thats a bit creepy too but Hefner isn't picking up young adults in the developing world which makes it a bit seedier.
Roebuck’s ties with Zim orphanage probed
November 18 2011 at 09:30am
By SHAUN SMILLIE
A Zimbabwean orphanage has apparently launched an investigation into a former England cricketer’s involvement with the institution.
A student has told an English tabloid, The Sun, that Peter Roebuck had groomed him on Facebook before he was allegedly attacked in the cricket writer’s hotel room.
The Australian claimed that a Zimbabwean businessman, who is also chairman of the St Joseph’s Home for boys in Harare, has launched his own investigation into the dead cricketer’s association with the institution.
Brian Maphosa said Roebuck used to visit the orphanage and had taken several of the boys, who had left the institution to further their studies in South Africa .
However, speaking to The Star on Thursday, Maphosa said he was uncomfortable speaking about the investigation.
Roebuck became involved with the home after he was introduced to the institution by one of the former residents.
The Sun reported that Zimbabwean student Itai Gondo, 26, claimed that Roebuck had spent days on Facebook luring him into a meeting, offering to pay his tuition fees.
In the exchange of e-mails, Roebuck invited Gondo to call him “dad”, a term he used with the 17 adopted “sons” who stayed with him in Pietermaritzburg.
When they agreed to meet, Gondo said Roebuck signed off saying: “OK my boy, bring stick in case I need to beat you!”
Gondo met Roebuck in his suite at a hotel in Cape Town, the tabloid reported.
The student claimed they spoke for two hours, before Roebuck pinned him on the bed and attacked him.
That, he claimed, ended only when his phone rang and Roebuck apologised.
Gondo told The Sun that he fled.
The day after that Roebuck sent a message to Gondo which allegedly said: “Worried bout u, hope u ok.”
Days later, Gondo said he replied with: “One day the long arm of the law will catch up with your evil misdeeds.”
Gondo alerted police, who visited Roebuck last Saturday. It was during this meeting that Roebuck allegedly jumped from a window to his death.
The alleged victim was allegedly so traumatised that he had considered taking his own life.
Police, said The Sun, are examining Roebuck’s computer as part of the investigation. - The Star
We all have our secrets. Some are potentially more embarrassing and destructive than others.
Somewhere in Sydney, for example, it is possible that an openly gay man is desperately concealing his fascination for Test cricket. Within certain groups a fondness for sport isn’t always viewed favourably. Imagine the complexity of coming out as a statistics-obsessed cricket tragic if you’re trying to fit in with Sydney’s artistic-intellectual elite.
Gay? Not a problem. Able to list from memory all of Greg Chappell’s Test centuries in Brisbane? With the arts crowd, that might be an issue.
But what if your whole life is essentially a secret?
Former cricket player turned writer Peter Roebuck committed suicide in South Africa last weekend after being accused of sexual assault by a 26-year-old Zimbabwean man. Suicide in such circumstances isn’t uncommon. A prominent former AFL player’s father killed himself in the early 1990s after being accused of rape. It is understandable to many that suicide might be considered even in the case of a sexual assault allegation, let alone a conviction.
The general view is that Roebuck impulsively leapt to his death from a sixth-floor hotel window rather than face the shame of a sexual assault conviction or the ordeal of a jail sentence. Perhaps this is so. Absent any testimony from Roebuck, we can never be certain.
Yet in the many thousands of words written about Roebuck since his death, a broader possible cause emerges. It could be that the 55-year-old, whose own friends admit they didn’t know well, simply couldn’t bear to have his life exposed.
Leave aside the precise assault charge, which without witnesses amounts to a he said/he said disputation of events. Law graduate Roebuck would have known he stood a reasonable chance of avoiding conviction. But he would also have known that so many details of his life would be examined during a trial.
For some people a trial is more terrifying than a verdict. There have been similar cases.
In 1991 I spoke with the lawyer for former National Safety Council of Australia chief John Friedrich, who earlier that year killed himself following the NSCA’s $300 million collapse. Friedrich was charged with around 100 counts of fraud.
Why, asked the lawyer, did I think Friedrich had committed suicide? It’s obvious, I answered. He was looking at years in prison. Didn’t want to do it.
The lawyer shook his head. In all of his briefings with Friedrich, the lawyer explained, the ex-NSCA boss resolutely declined to reveal any significant or accurate personal details. He dodged and weaved and straight-out lied. The lawyer was reduced to begging. “It’s all going to come out in court anyway,” he told his client. “I need to know everything.”
But Friedrich kept his secrets. It later emerged that, contrary to his claims, Friedrich hadn’t been born in South Australia to German parents in 1945. He’d actually arrived here from Germany on a tourist visa during the 1970s. His real name was Hohenberger.
None of this had any bearing on his guilt or innocence. It was just information that Hohenberger – whose Australian wife and children knew nothing of his past – wanted concealed.
British author David Frith wrote last week that Roebuck “seems to have had no close friends — apart, perhaps, from former Somerset teammate Vic Marks, who said this week that despite their many years as teammates he felt he never did really know Roebuck. This tragic figure was even estranged from some of his family.”
Estrangement was a theme in Roebuck’s life, almost as though he was determined always to keep his distance. Friends, such as he had, sometimes found themselves unexpectedly denounced. “One evening I was surfing the web,” wrote South African journalist Neil Manthorp in the days after Roebuck’s death, “and was shocked to see an article in which he described me as a turncoat and accused me of having double standards.”
Roebuck had previously stayed at Manthorp’s house. They’d known each other for more than two decades. Roebuck was even disinclined to speak to those with whom he agreed. “He wrote reams of praise about [former Australian spinner] Stuart MacGill’s principled stance against touring Zimbabwe, despite the fact he never once contacted MacGill to talk about it,” noted sports writer Ant Sharwood. Roebuck also turned against England. “He more or less renounced the country of his birth,” says Frith. “No-one is quite sure why.”
In recent years Roebuck seemed to be turning against Australia, despite taking citizenship. Nationalism offended him. In 2008 Roebuck called for then-Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting and several other senior players to be sacked, basically for being too happy after a narrow Test victory over India.
Journalists Patrick Carlyon and Martin Flanagan both noticed recent changes of tone in Roebuck’s work. “His judgments had become more shrill,” wrote Flanagan. His earlier work, collected in 1990’s Tangled Up in White, is notably whimsical and genial. Also notable is the author’s witty choice of cover image. It’s a shot of Roebuck being embarrassingly bowled during a county match.
Roebuck previously didn’t take himself too seriously. In later years, however, he appointed himself as a kind of grand moral ruler over global cricket, constantly issuing orders and directives. A certain player must do this, match officials must do that, and so on. Novelist Howard Jacobson described his “inflexible and out of reach” style as one of “pedantic authoritativeness”.
It became so ridiculous that in the summer of 2008/9 I hosted The Great Peter Roebuck Summer Run Muster at my website. Roebuck earned one run for each use of the word “must" in his columns, with two bonus runs for a double mention in the same sentence and a bonus three should he manage a triple-must. Must in a headline was worth four runs. A “must" aimed at someone other than an Australian counted for six.
As a cricketer Roebuck was stodgy and defensive. As a muster, the man sparkled. He raced to the 90s by mid-December. At summer’s end Roebuck was on 184.
When you set yourself up as a moral arbiter, exposure of personal flaws might be difficult to deal with. Factor in Roebuck’s other concerns and the events of last weekend seem almost predestined. Frith, who has studied 150 cricket-related suicides, finds a vague background pattern: “Principally the causes are clinical depression, health worries, financial difficulties, sexual problems, or a combination of some of these. With Peter Roebuck it would seem that the imminent police investigation caused him panic and despair.”
We all have our secrets. Roebuck took his to the grave.
Care to explain where I mentioned his sexual orientation Rexxy?
Would your outrage be as great if he did that to 19 year old women?
It's not 4 corners dickhead so start a thread there and be Mong 2.0.
How did you get homophobia out of that?
There is no mention of him being a pedofile or as went un-censored here "kiddy fiddler". The outrage is because Robeuck is alleged to be a androtop, woopsie, or purse carrier. And in the world of Tonearm or Brutus, thats disgusting.
Oh?
Where did I say that homosexuality was disgusting?
Would your outrage be as great if he did that to 19 year old women? Its still assualt, but not indecent assault. Despite wearing a hard hat, you might be homophobic?