Young reporter had to fight Don Burke off in hotel room

A JOURNALIST has recalled how Don Burke said he could give her a job and then tried to “guilt” her into sex in a Sydney hotel room.

A FORMER TV journalist has recalled how Don Burke told her to come to Sydney for a job — and then tried to “guilt” her into sex in a hotel room.

Amanda Pepe was a 20-year-old working in Broken Hill, NSW, in the late 1980s when she was assigned to cover the gardening guru’s visit.

“He suggested that my talent was wasted up there and that I should come to Sydney and take up a role in a new upcoming program, and he would help me with that,” Ms Pepe told the ABC’s 7.30 program.

She resigned from her job and caught a plane to the city — but when Burke met her alone, with a rose on the passenger seat of his car, she realised he had something else in mind.

Amanda says Burke talked constantly about “his sexual exploits” while they were together.

“The intent was very clear that he expected to have sex, that he’d paid for the room, that I more or less owed it to him, and it was very uncomfortable,” she said.

“I think he more or less tried to guilt me into it. ‘Well, we’ve got this far, why wouldn’t you finish it off?’”

TV personality Don Burke denies claims he is a bully and a sexual predator. Picture: Patrick Riviere/Getty Images

Amanda is one of a number of women who allege Burke is a sexual predator and a bully who repeatedly harassed female colleagues. The former Channel 9 star has strongly denied the allegations reported in a joint ABC/Fairfax investigation, saying he is a victim of a “witch hunt” because some people don’t like him.

Amanda has said her encounter with Burke made her leave journalism, robbed her of her confidence and left her feeling naive and stupid. She told Fairfax he convinced her he was “really close to [Nine media executive] Sam Chisholm” and had “a great job opportunity” for her.

“Of course, no such job existed, just a sad hotel room and a desperate attempt to get me to sleep with him,” she said, crying as she recalled fighting him off. “There was a lot of physical pushing.”

When he did reluctantly leave, she said, he told her she could stay in the room for one night but was then on her own.

Amanda said it never occurred to her to report Burke. “I think that just speaks to the culture at the time, which is so sad,” she said.

But reading the allegations about the star, she felt sick and decided she had to speak out.

“I realised it was time to stop protecting myself, which is basically what I’ve been doing all these years, and speak out in the hope that it could make a difference,” she said.

“There are still plenty out there who use the same modus operandi.”

Other women claim Burke behaved inappropriately around them. Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush presenter Wendy Mooney told news.com.au the Burke’s Backyard star told her a piglet had a “really big p***y” when she met him at a Channel 9 lunch. Wendy said Burke was completely expressionless, “like it was a normal conversation.”

Olympic swimmer Susie O’Neill told ABC/Fairfax the 70-year-old asked her, “Is your c*** as big as that?”, when she showed him a painting of a flower inside her home.

A former crew member told 7.30 Burke asked him if he would lick faeces off a dog’s bottom.

One ex-print journalist told Fairfax that when she went to write a behind-the-scenes story on Burke’s Backyard, she witnessed him making “revolting and sexual comments about the plants” to a horrified elderly lady, telling her they looked like female genitalia after giving birth and a clitoris.

The journalist said he also asked her to sit on his lap.

Wendy Dent told ABC/Fairfax Burke told her he could get her an audition — if she was topless. Former producer Louise Langdon alleged Burke made regular lewd comments, persuaded her to watch a video of a woman having sex with a donkey and tried to lift up her top.

One former entertainment journalist said Burke told her during interviews she would be a “demon f***”, and that he had bought a horse for a female relative so he could watch her “rub her c*** on its back”.

Ex-producer Bridget Ninness told ABC/Fairfax, “He was a vile, vile human being”, while former Nine boss David Leckie said he was “a horrible, horrible, horrible man.”

Archive footage of Burke making crude and sexual comments emerged yesterday. In one, he asks an interviewee whether her breasts are real, and in another, he offends Channel 10 star Jessica Rowe in a panel discussion about whether Australians swear too much, by telling her he loves “a good f***”.

Burke “absolutely” denies all the claims.

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Originally published as Young reporter had to fight Don Burke off in hotel room