Former league star tormented by abused child's death

SYDNEY - Gay former Australian league star Ian Roberts became a suspect in a police probe after befriending a homeless boy caught up in paedophile ring and later murdered.

Roberts revealed how he was placed under surveillance after he began mentoring abused teenager Arron Light.

New South Wales police investigating the case quickly cleared Roberts of any wrong-doing, but he told ABC's Australian Story how the incident changed his life.

In the late 1980s, Roberts, then considered one of the world's best front-rowers, struck up a friendship with Arron after meeting the then 9-year-old during a hospital visit.

The pair stayed in touch, with Arron calling the player every few months over several years, before they caught up again when he was 14.

"He was a bit of a wild child. He was using drugs heavily, he wasn't keeping regular hours, he was a street kid," Roberts told ABC.

When Arron moved into a derelict house, Roberts said he insisted the boy move in with him and his flatmate.

Six months later, Roberts, who recently said he was gay, realised he was under police investigation.

"I got that ... phone call that changed ... my life," he said.

Police officers told Roberts that Arron had been under surveillance "and that prior to him moving in, he had been often checked at known paedophile houses".

"They told me I'd been under surveillance, that the house had been under surveillance.

"It was like the greatest sledgehammer between the eyes I have ever been delivered."

Roberts said he was "terrified" that any publicity of the case would damage his reputation.

"I remember just feeling the weight and responsibility and that moment in my life was just like 'My god, Ian, this is going to destroy you'," Roberts said.

"I'd just come out and I was [thinking about] all that speculation."

Detective Inspector Brad Monk, who headed the investigation tracking Arron's activities, said he had been initially alarmed to learn where the teenager was staying.

"When we first became aware that Arron was living with Ian Roberts, obviously as an investigator and knowing who Ian Roberts was, we were very alarmed in relation to what his involvement was with Arron," Mr Monk told the programme.

But police were able to quickly clarify that the relationship was non-sexual and that Roberts was acting as a support, he said.

Roberts said Arron was persuaded to give police officers statements revealing the details of the paedophile ring. His information gave police enough evidence to prosecute members of the ring.

The teenager disappeared soon after, and Roberts said he eventually refused to take phone calls from Arron following numerous arrests.

"I went on just living that illusion that I'd already created for everyone else," Roberts said. "I was treating it like a dirty secret or like Arron was this mistake in my life."

He was devastated when Arron's body was found in April 2002. He had been murdered in late 1997, shortly before he was due to give evidence in the paedophile case.

"I was told he was stabbed a number of times through the chest and then his body was wrapped in a carpet and dumped in a shallow grave and back-filled and left to rot and rot," Roberts said.

"I was the last person that child cared about and I was the last person to turn my back on him.

"Given those choices again ... I would so sooner have the whole world think that I was a paedophile and that child be alive."

- AAP