Burke offered job, tried to ‘guilt her’ into sex – journalist
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.
Ms Pepe said 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’?”
Ms Pepe is one of numerous 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 an ABC/Fairfax investigation, saying he is a victim of a “witch-hunt” because some people don’t like him.
Ms Pepe 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.”
She said when he did reluctantly leave, he told her she could stay one night in the room but was then on her own.
Ms Pepe 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.