Sir Bob Hepple obituary

Sir Bob Hepple, freedom fighter and academic, who has died aged 81, fled from apartheid South Africa in 1963 to escape prison after working as Nelson Mandela’s lawyer and made his home in Britain. In the UK he forged an outstanding career in academic life and as a leading advocate for equality.

Bob was born in Johannesburg to radical parents, Josephine (nee Zwarenstein) and Alex Hepple, and was educated at the Jeppe boys’ high school and the University of Witwatersrand, where he studied law. His father, a trade unionist and leader of the South African Labour party, raised money to help pay for Mandela’s defence in what eventually turned into the 1956 Treason trial (he was acquitted). Following the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, officials of the South African Congress of Trade Unions anticipated arrest at any time. Bob was hastily given the administrative authority necessary to run the union’s affairs.