‘I CAN NEVER FORGIVE HIM FOR MONSTROUS COMMENT ABOUT HIS OWN RELATIVE!’

Almost 30 years after her encounter with Don Burke, this woman still feels sick to the stomach. She tells her story…

Let me introduce myself. I am the woman who was pictured in shadows with a deep voice (not my own) on the ABC’S 7.30 investigation into Don Burke last week.

As much as I would like to tell you my name, I am still too scared to. Having worked in the media for near on 30 years, I know what happens to women who “step out of line” or become “problematic” or are “not part of the team” in the eyes of almost always male management – they don’t work again. And I need to earn a living.

But I also am a woman who is fed up with the boys’ club attitude that prevails in the media and the sexual harassment that isn’t just commonplace but endemic within it. I’m talking men who make lewd comments, who put their hands where they are not welcome and, in the case of Don Burke, are so disgusting, three decades later I not only recall every word he said to me but still feel sick to my stomach recalling them.

I was around 21 and a young reporter on a major newspaper when I was first sent out to interview Don. At the time, Burke’s Backyard was one of the highest rating shows on TV and Don was considered revenue royalty at Channel Nine. He was also well known to be a predator and bully.

It is still hard for me to talk about what Don said to me during a series of interviews. I used to pride myself on being able to handle whatever came my way but Don was, in a word, disgusting. So please excuse the vulgarity of my language following. As a journalist, I have been trained to quote verbatim. Oh, and when you have been spoken to like Don spoke to me, you don’t forget in a hurry.

“I bet you are a demon f***”, “I have a garden gnome with a huge c**k but mine is bigger and harder” and “You look like a girl who likes to get on top” were some of the comments that came out.

But the worst was without doubt something he said about a young female relative – that he bought her a horse “because I love to watch her rub her c*** on its back.” I felt sick, repulsed to my core, so I ended the interview and took the tape recording to management at Nine. I was sent a bunch of flowers the next day. Nothing I know of was ever said to Don. And this is just not good enough. Everyone knew how disgusting he was, yet no one did anything to stop him.

I watched the interview with Don on A Current Affair last week and was gobsmacked at his response to the allegations I, and numerous other women, made. We were all either delusional, witch-hunting, disgruntled, following a “Twittersphere” trend or mentally fragile.