Commentator Jim Maxwell, a friend of Roebuck’s working at the ABC, told the inquest he had received a call late that evening asking him to go to Roebuck’s room. There he was greeted by a police officer and saw his friend sitting on the bed.

“He was totally in despair,” Maxwell said.

He said Roebuck had told him he needed a lawyer and asked him to contact people at his home, before police asked Maxwell to leave.

The same cause of death – multiple injuries – was also recorded at an inquest held in South Africa, which was not attended by family members.

Matthew Lyall, the forensic pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination in the UK, wrote in his report: “There were no findings to specifically suggest that a third party was directly involved in any of the injuries, but the involvement of a third party cannot be ruled out solely on the basis of the pathological findings.”

A decade before his death, Roebuck received a suspended prison sentence for common assault in the UK after caning three South African teenage cricketers staying with him in 1999.

Roebuck’s sister, Margaret Frostick, told the Cheshire court he had pleaded guilty “just so he could go and carry on with his job. He was horrified that such false allegations could be laid against him”.

Some young African cricketers have painted a darker picture of the renowned cricket writer and philanthropist, speaking of repeated beatings during stays in his house, while also praising his generosity.

Frostick was joined at Friday’s inquest by two other relatives of Roebuck.

The coroner Jacqueline Devonish told them: “I’m sorry the case has taken such a long time for us to progress, but it was in part waiting to find out about a renewed hearing in South Africa which hasn’t come to pass.”