Police planned a charge of “alleged sexual assault” which triggered suicide

The SAPS was planning to lay a charge against Peter Roebuck of sexual assault against a young Zimbabwean man, which would seem to have triggered his decision to kill himself.

This is the gist of a report in Mail & Guardian, which quotes fellow commentator Jim Maxwell: “I’m sure what happened was triggered by the visit of the police and the fact that they were going to charge him with an alleged sexual assault, which meant he was going to be detained and would then have to appear in court on Monday.

“This is what I discovered when I went to his room after he made a very agitated, dramatic, despairing phone call to my room … He was absolutely on edge. And when I arrived the detective came out and filled me in on the detail.”

Maxwell said he was in the room for around two minutes and then left along with one of the two policemen who had been sent to detain Roebuck, whom he last saw sitting in a chair by the window.

It was at this time police confirmed to him that they had gone to the hotel to detain Roebuck who was to be charged with sexual assault against a Zimbabwean man in his twenties.

While Maxwell was out of the room, the former Somerset captain fell to his death.

Roebuck has a prior conviction for caning bear-bottomed boys in a sexually suggstive manner. — Staff reporter, SportsCentral.