Bob Hewitt sex letters shown in court
IN 1980, tennis champion Bob Hewitt wrote to his 12-year-old student whom he called “my love” about how he didn’t want her to think he was a “sex maniac”. Almost 35 years later, at his rape and sexual assault trial, Hewitt’s wife wrote equally inappropriate words on her notepad.
When the mother of one of Hewitt’s alleged victims, now an open lesbian, was brought to the stand to testify, Delaille Hewitt wrote in bold capital letters: “DYKES’ (sic) MOTHER”.
This was as Theresa “Twiggy” Tolken described how Hewitt had for months allegedly tried to groom her for sex and the attempts had culminated in an alleged rape incident at Sun City in 1980. Tolken is one of three women who have laid charges against the doubles champion, all claiming Hewitt took advantage of their innocence as teenage girls in the 1980s.
Tolken was the first to take the stand yesterday at the start of a trial in the high court, seated at Palm Ridge. She detailed how Hewitt had been her private tennis coach, often taking her to private locations where he would fondle her and ask her to touch his erect penis.
He would sometimes slip letters into her tennis racket bag, three of which Tolken had saved and presented to the court yesterday. Usually addressing her as “my love”, Hewitt wrote of how Tolken, then 12, was the only one capable of “lifting him up”.
He wrote in one letter: “I’m always available in body, mind, heart and soul.” In the second letter, he wrote: “I can only assume you think of me as a sexmaniac.” In the third, he wrote: “No more will I chase, no more will I come... Destroy this and the last (letter) now.”
Tolken said that at the end of 1980, because Hewitt had become a trusted friend of her parents, they were willing to let him drive her to Sun City where she would be coached while her father took part in a golfing tournament.
It was on the way there that Hewitt parked on the side of the road and asked her to kiss his penis. When she gave his genitalia a peck, he said: “No, that’s not how you do it”.
He explained what he wanted and according to Tolken, who was then barely a teenager, she complied.
It was at the Sun City hotel that Hewitt brought Tolken into his room, asked her to take a bath with him and then took her to his bedroom. He rubbed vaseline on his penis and tried to penetrate her, but according to Tolken, the pain was too much to bear, so he stopped.
It was only months later, when speaking in confidence with her sister, that Tolken finally revealed to her mother, Colleen, what had happened.
A charge of attempted rape was laid in 1981, but according to the defence it was dropped because the attorney-general at the time decided not to pursue the case.
Hewitt’s lawyer, Terry Price, said the letters were taken out of context and referred almost exclusively to her tennis career.
He said the reason he had made the “sex maniac” comment was because Tolken had seen him flirting with a group of showgirls and the 12-yearold had called him a sex maniac.