New details of the death of a well-known cricket journalist have emerged almost 13 years after it had happened.
On Saturday (AEDT), an inquest jury at Cheshire Coroner’s Court in England revealed its findings, saying Peter Roebuck was “totally in despair” before he committed suicide in 2011.
Roebuck was a high-profile cricket writer and presenter in Australia at the time.
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He wrote regularly for the then Fairfax newspapers that included The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Roebuck was 55 years old when he jumped out his hotel window from the sixth level.
He was in South Africa at the time to cover a match between the host nation and Australia, and found himself under investigation for an alleged sexual assault.
Police were in Roebuck’s room when he jumped.
They were questioning Roebuck about the alleged sexual assaulted of a 26-year-old man.
At the time it was reported that Roebuck had met the man to discuss a plan of financial support for him while he studied at university.
The man then reported Roebuck to police on November 12 and police made a move to arrest Roebuck that night.
The arresting officer Aubrey McDonald said he was making a phone call outside Roebuck’s hotel room when he heard some commotion and his partner Lieutenant Cecil Jacobs shouting.
Jacobs was yelling at Roebuck as Roebuck ran for the window.
“Seconds later I heard a sound which I now know was Peter Roebuck falling to the first-floor balcony,” McDonald said.
Before becoming a sports writer, Roebuck played first-class county cricket for Somerset.
He had also captained that team.
In 2001 he received a suspended prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to caning three South African cricketers — aged between 19 and 19 — who had stayed with him two years earlier.
Dr Margaret Frostick, Roebuck’s sister, told the court, Roebuck had only pleaded guilty “so he could go and carry on with his job”.
“He was horrified that such false allegations could be laid against him and that he was unable to persist in getting to prove his innocence,” she said.
Another relative of Roebuck’s, Jacqueline Devonish, apologised for the delay of the case.
“I’m sorry the case has taken such a long time for us to progress, but it was in part waiting to find out about a renewed hearing in South Africa which hasn’t come to pass,” she revealed.
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