Daily Times

JOHANNESBURG: Former tennis champion and convicted child rapist Bob Hewitt had an appeal to have his six-year jail term reduced by South Africa’s Constitutional Court rejected, media reported Thursday. The Australian-born 76-year-old had turned to the highest court in the country after an initial appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal in June. According to reports the Constitutional Court ruled his appeal “had no chance of success”. Hewitt, who has been out on bail, will shortly be sent to prison to serve his sentence, television station ‘eNCA’ and internet site IOL announced. The former multiple Gram Slam doubles champion was convicted in May 2015 of raping two girls aged 12 and 13 in the early 1980s, and of indecently assaulting a 17-year-old girl in 1994. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges. Hewitt who was born in Dubbo, Australia has lived in South Africa for most of his life. His name was removed from the International Tennis Hall of Fame after a series of sexual abuse allegations against him surfaced in 2013.