Stephen Hawking, the severely disabled British scientist renowned for his theories on cosmology, has suffered ”a series of mystery assaults”, the Daily Mirror reported on Monday.
Hawking (62) was under close surveillance in a hospital in Cambridge, where he was being treated for an unrelated bout of pneumonia, the tabloid said.
It said that Hawking’s three children and nurses who have cared for him feared he could be the victim of the controversial Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, in which sufferers harm others to draw attention to themselves.
Police confirmed they were ”investigating an allegation of assault on a 62-year-old man from Cambridge”.
The Mirror said the second police investigation in four years had been launched into the claims and that they were seeking to interview Hawking’s wife, Elaine (53).
”The family are worried sick. They’ve been suspicious for some time someone has been harming Stephen,” a source told the Mirror.
Hawking, the author of A Brief History of Time, is paralysed by motor neurone disease, needs round the clock care and speaks with a computerised voice box.
The Mirror reported that during the hot weather last summer, the scientist was left stranded in his wheelchair in the garden of his home on the hottest day of the year, suffering severe heatstroke and sunburn.
It added that recent injuries he has suffered included knocks and bruises that did not require hospital care, but that his children — Robert (37), Lucy (31) and Tim (24) — were concerned.
According to the report, police dropped an earlier investigation after Hawking refused to cooperate with their inquiries, insisting his home life was private.
Hawking left his wife of 26 years, Jane, now 57, in 1990 and married his current wife five years later. — Sapa-DPA