Bid to free rapist Hewitt on parole set for review

The victims of convicted rapist and former tennis star Bob Hewitt will be given an opportunity to make representations to have his release on parole overturned.

According to Tania Koen, the lawyer who represented two of the three survivors, a date has been set for October 21.

On September 15, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola instructed National Commissioner of Correctional Services Arthur Fraser to review the decision to release Hewitt on parole. This was after reports that a letter from the chairperson of the Correctional Supervision and Parole Board for St Albans – a Ms CC Binta – stated Hewitt would be released on September 23.

The letter said that “when an offender has served the minimum detention period of his/her sentence, he/she qualifies to be considered for parole”.

This followed an application to the board on August 13.

Hewitt, 79, was convicted of the rape of two young women and the sexual assault of another who he coached in the 1980s and 1990s. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

Koen said she and law firm Eversheds-Sutherland, which represents one victim, received a notice from the department of correctional services on October 4 that an “extension has been granted” for representations on October 14.

“They only gave five business days’ notice, which is inadequate as it does not give sufficient time for our clients to prepare and make arrangements to appear if they chose to do so,” she said.

She wrote to the department on October 7, stating that the proceedings were not an “extension”, but a review and that time given to prepare was unreasonable. Koen said the legal teams needed to review copies of the parole proceedings which they had not yet received. “On October 8, I approached