Woman 'bragged' about league sex romp

Prime Minister Rudd joins chorus

Last updated 22:10 14/05/2009

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A former work colleague of the woman at the centre of the Cronulla Sharks sex scandal in Christchurch involving Matthew Johns claims her co-worker bragged about the incident.

Tania Boyd has told the Nine Network that the woman in the ABC's Four Corners report, identified as ''Clare'', had boasted to her workmates about bedding several players and only contacted police five days after the alleged incident.

''She was absolutely excited about the fact. She was bragging about it to the staff and quite willing, openly saying how she had sex with several players,'' said Boyd.

''We were quite disgusted about it. There was no trauma whatsoever.

''I can't work out what's happened. Does it take five days for it to sink in?''

John's media and coaching career is in tatters after the ABC's Four Corners program aired allegations about his involvement in a 2002 group sex incident in Christchurch while he was playing for Cronulla.

Meanwhile Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the scandal exposes a wider problem regarding attitudes towards women in sections of Australian society.

Rudd supported the sporting and television officials who took action against Johns, saying women must be treated with respect.

"It's very plain that it's very important for sporting organisations across the country to show leadership in demonstrating proper respect towards women,'' Rudd told reporters.

"Therefore, the decisions which have been recently taken I fully support."

The Cronulla Sharks club said today it looked back on the events of 2002 with a sense of shame and extended its sympathies to "Claire", the Christchurch woman.

Cronulla Sharks NRL club chairman Barry Pierce said in a statement that Johns had been "man enough" to apologise for his actions and so too should all the players involved.

"I look back now appreciating that more should have been done on our part."

The woman told the ABC that the night in which she had group sex with several Cronulla players at a Christchurch hotel seven years ago left her with psychological damage and led her to abandoning her studies.

Psychiatrists reported that she was suicidal, had cut her wrists several times and bought a rope to hang herself.

She told the ABC she felt degraded and traumatised by the incident and despised the players involved.

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Among the allegations aired on Monday, the woman said two men rubbed their penises in her face while other men stood watching and masturbating.

Six men had sex with her while another six looked on. There was always someone touching her, she said.

''For years and years afterwards I was drinking a lot, crying a lot and losing a lot of friends and doing quite destructive things to myself and other people,'' she told the program.

''At the end of it, I wasn't so much drinking heaps and heaps, I was more scared to go out of the house.''

She said the destructive period lasted about four or five years and she was now speaking out to let the wives and girlfriends of those involved know what they had done.

''I was so angry and I wanted their lives destroyed like mine was,'' she said.

''If I had a gun I'd shoot them right now.

''I hate them. They disgust me. For all that they did, I hate them so much.''

- Agencies