Cameras rolling couldn’t stop the tide of Don Burke sleaze

Deborah Hutton has become the first former Nine Network presenter to detail an incident involving Don Burke.

Jamie Durie, Don Burke and Deborah Hutton on Renovation Rescue.

Don Burke’s alleged lewd behaviour was so brazen that even the cameras filming were not a barrier to him making a sexual remark.

So says Deborah Hutton, who has become the first former Nine Network presenter to detail an incident involving the host of Burke’s Backyard.

As more and more women have spoken out about their encounters with the star, who hosted and produced the gardening program Burke’s Backyard from the late 1980s until it was axed by Nine in 2004, Hutton said she never wanted to be left alone with Burke, who has admitted to bullying behaviour, but denies sexual harassment.

“I knew one day it would eventually all come out about the Don,” Hutton told The Australian.

“You never wanted to be left alone with him, his inappropriate actions around women were widely known.

“Everybody was aware of it but he was the lifestyle king of Channel Nine, the Logie winner, the bread maker, and the powers that be all turned a blind eye.”

Burke and Hutton were involved in making programs in the 1990s, after Burke’s company CTC Productions took over producing his gardening program from Nine.

“I remember a time he came to film my apartment in Sydney back in the late 90s … we were sitting down on the couch to record the chat and he made some disgusting sexual remark that I couldn’t quite believe at the time, and I couldn’t get him out the door quick enough,” Hutton said. “He was a powerful predator.”

The program was filming a segment in Hutton’s Bondi apartment at the time and crew members were present.

Hutton was under contract at Nine and felt unable to speak out. “I felt I had to shut up and made the decision to avoid him in future. An absolute creep.”

Hutton cannot remember the precise phrase that Burke said, but said it was similar in nature to what Burke said to swimming star Susie O’Neill. Burke compared part of her anatomy to a painting of a flower painted by O’Neill’s husband. “She had a very similar experience.”

But she remembers following up with the crew afterwards and asking: “We are going to cut that bit out, aren’t we?

“I was quite shocked because he didn’t come across like that; he was like a good old dad with his cardigans.”

Hutton started her career as a model and soon became a television presenter on Nine, presenting its lifestyle program Looking Good. She was contracted to Nine in the 1990s as an authority on fashion, beauty and lifestyle. But she wasn’t able to avoid Burke entirely and appeared with him in 2003 to promote the program Renovation Rescue.

In 2012 she appeared naked on the cover of The Australian Women’s Weekly, a magazine she has long been associated with, to celebrate turning 50.

More recently she has mixed presenter roles with her homewares brand as well as her wellness business, Balance By Deborah Hutton.

The Australian sought a right of reply from Burke’s lawyers Kennedys, but they did not respond.