adminZimbabwean student before he died, it was reported yesterday.
The alleged victim laid a charge of indecent assault against the former Somerset captain on Saturday after the pair apparently met through Facebook, a South African newspaper claimed.
The New Age quoted a police officer, who reportedly confirmed a case had been opened at the Claremont police station in Cape Town.
The article stated: “When The New Age queried an indecent assault charge laid at Claremont police station and spoke to Capt Malusi Mgxwathi on Sunday, Mgxwathi said: “This is the same man who committed suicide at the hotel’.”
The paper said that Roebuck had met his Zimbabwean accuser last week after arriving in Cape Town to cover South Africa’s test match against Australia.
The newspaper said it was believed the former cricketer arranged to meet the young man to discuss the possibility of helping him attend university.
It said: “The pair later met at the hotel, where they were allegedly meant to discuss a possible university sponsorship for the male Zimbabwean.
“The New Age source said Roebuck allegedly tried to seduce the Facebook friend and have sex with him against his will.
“The man reportedly went to Claremont police station and laid charges of indecent assault against Roebuck.”
The New Age report also offered further alleged details of the moments before Roebuck’s death.
The newspaper claimed the broadcaster was due to be arrested but asked to change his clothes before leaving the hotel.
The report stated that he then moved towards the window and leaped out.
It continued: “When police confronted Roebuck in his hotel at about 9pm on Saturday, with the intention of effecting an arrest, the British man allegedly asked to be allowed to change his clothes.
“In the process he managed to move close to a window and jumped out.”
South African police declined to comment on the report.
A spokesman said: “An investigation is underway and the matter will be subject to an inquest.
“At this stage we cannot give any further information on the matter.”
Roebuck (55) plunged six floors in the apparent suicide in Cape Town, where he had been commentating on a Test match.
According to sources, he became agitated when a detective and a uniformed officer from the South African police sexual crimes unit arrived to interview him at the Southern Sun hotel in the suburb of Claremont.
Roebuck phoned fellow cricket journalist Jim Maxwell to help find him a lawyer and contact a group of underprivileged boys he had been supporting near his South African home.
“Can you come down to my room quickly, I’ve got a problem,” he said in the desperate phone call just after 9pm on Saturday.
Minutes later, with the uniformed officer still in the room, Roebuck plunged to his death, hitting an awning as he fell.
Paramedics were called to the hotel, a short walk from the Newlands cricket ground, and Roebuck was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police seized items from his hotel room, including a laptop computer.
Roebuck had spent part of his last day alive with members of the Australian cricket team, who had lost their first Test against South Africa at Newlands on Friday.
He regularly toured with the team as a distinguished writer and broadcaster for the Australian media, following a career in county cricket during which he played 335 first-class matches.
He was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1988.
A distraught Maxwell, one of the last people to see Roebuck alive on Saturday night, gave a statement to police yesterday.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation cricket commentator, well known to British audiences for his work on Test Match Special, said he had seen nothing to suggest Roebuck was contemplating suicide.
“Things happen.
“As far as I could see at the Test, there wasn’t a problem,” said Maxwell. “He was a person who had a great sense of humanity and caring. That was Peter.
“There were a lot of other things about him, but we’ve lost a wonderful friend and supporter.”
He described Roebuck as “one of the outstanding writers on the game of cricket.”
Police spokesman Captain Frederick Van Wyk confirmed Roebuck’s death was being treated as suicide, but would not give details about the sexual assault allegations.
In his long playing record, one incident stood out – a spectacular clash with Sir Ian Botham when he replaced him as Somerset captain in 1985.
When Cambridge-educated Roebuck backed a club committee decision not to renew the contracts of West Indies stars Viv Richards and Joel Garner, their close friend Botham was furious and walked
out on the side, sparking a long-standing enmity for Roebuck.
After retiring from cricket in 1991, Roebuck turned his hand to writing and broadcasting, and become one of the most respected and widely read commentators in cricket.
He divided his time between homes in Bondi Beach, Australia, and the South African town of Pietermaritzburg, where he was helping a group of underprivileged boys through school and university.
Roebuck, who was unmarried, was at the centre of controversy in 2001 when he received a suspended jail sentence for common assault after beating three teenage cricketers across their bare buttocks with a cane.
The South African boys had been invited to stay at his former home in Taunton, Somerset, for coaching in the late 1990s.
Henk Lindeque, one of Roebuck’s victims, said yesterday he was ‘shocked’ to learn of the cricket writer’s sudden death.
“I haven’t had any contact with him since the trial,” Lindeque said.
“The problem was not so much that he caned us but wanted to examine the marks. That’s when I decided to get out of his house.”
Roebuck, one of six children born in Oxford to teacher parents, was apparently estranged from his family for much of his adult life.
On his website, he included contributions from his ‘extended family’ of underprivileged boys from South Africa and Zimbabwe – some of them cricketers – whom he assisted with school fees, coaching or getting jobs. – The Daily Mail.
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