Loading
She said the pair had gone out to other bars around Broome after the Roebuck Bay Hotel closed for the evening, before returning to staff accommodation and having a drink with colleagues at the hotel.
The woman told the court she went to her own room to get a bottle of alcohol, and when she turned “Stewart was standing in the door frame”.
“At this point he was insinuating he wanted to talk about being grumpy at work or work conversations,” she said.
The woman alleged Burchell dead-bolted the door, and the two began two talk before he told her to drop her pants and perform a sex act.
“I told him to f--- off,” the woman told the court.
She said he asked her again, before her phone rang and she answered it. However, Burchell allegedly continued to push her for sex, which she rebuffed.
The woman is due to be cross-examined by defence lawyer Alexander Mossop on Friday.
Mossop has previously alleged the woman conspired with the skimpy bartender to fabricate allegations against Burchell in a bid to sue the Roebuck Bay Hotel.
Mossop said the bartender had previously come into financial difficulties after crashing her car, and needed the cash “desperately”, but she denied the allegations.
A third woman told the court on Wednesday that she was a former employee of the Roebuck Bay Hotel and had a “stand-offish” relationship with Burchell when she attended the pub’s regular wet T-shirt competition in January 2020.
“[He wasn’t] always the nicest – he would make funny comments about my sexuality and about the people I was talking to and had relationships with,” she said.
The Roebuck Bay Hotel runs a regular wet T-shirt competition.Credit: Hannah Murphy
The woman alleged Burchell was with a group of men when they saw each other, and she was dressed in a button-up shirt and a bikini top.
“He came up to me and said, ‘you’ve got the best tits in Broome’, and grabbed my top,” she told the court.
The woman told the court her shirt was half buttoned-up when she alleged Burchell reached over and pulled her bikini top down, exposing her breasts.
Mossop asked the woman about her relationship with another complainant in the case who alleges she was raped by Burchell.
The pair had dated for a period, and Mossop questioned why the woman had told her then-ex girlfriend she intended to “support her” if she gave a statement to police.
“Do you accept in your efforts to support her you invented this incident?” he asked.
“That’s not true,” the woman replied.
Defence lawyer Alexander Mossop.Credit: Hannah Murphy
“The incident that you describe in the pub that day never happened?” Mossop said.
“That’s not true,” she responded.
Mossop questioned the woman’s decision to make a report to police in 2023, and said she must have been aware witnesses and CCTV would be harder to locate due to the time since the incident.
The woman said police reached out proactively when she made the report, and she did not make a statement at the time because “that was just how [Burchell] acted all the time”.
Mossop argued Burchell was not even in Broome for a period in January 2020, and the woman could not be more specific about when the incident was alleged to have occurred.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.