A correctional oversight and parole review board reviewed and set aside former tennis world champion and convicted offender Bob Hewitt (78) for parole.
Hewitt will therefore not be released on parole as the parole board considered earlier this year.
Singabakho Nxumalo of the Department of Correctional Services announced the decision in a statement on Friday.
Bam said at the time if Hewitt was convicted in his 50s, he would be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison and that Hewitt only blamed himself for his misery.
Hewitt was convicted in March 2015 of raping Theresa “Twiggy” Tolken and Olivia Jasriel (formerly known as Suellen Sheehan) in the 1980s . The crimes were committed while he was teaching them tennis lessons. Hewitt pleaded not guilty to the charges.
He has been serving a sentence in September 2016 in the St. Albans Correctional Center in Port Elizabeth after the Constitutional Court earlier rejected his application for leave to appeal.
The parole board met earlier this year to decide whether Hewitt would be released on parole. Jasriel’s legal representative then said that the decision would be called for as Hewitt’s victims “were not aware of the case.”
According to the statement, the matter would have to be submitted to the review board as soon as all the recommendations were considered by the review board.
Hewitt is a former professional tennis player from Australia. He became a South African citizen when he married a South African in 1967.
