Matthew Johns sex-storm woman marries
Article from: Herald Sun
Janet Fife-Yeomans
May 18, 2009 12:00am
THE woman at the centre of the Matthew Johns sex scandal has since married a rugby union player.
The couple live overseas, where friends said she was "trying to get on with her life".
Her family in New Zealand, who knew nothing about the 2002 group sex scandal until last week, refused to comment.
But the owner of the Racecourse Hotel in Christchurch said that while rugby league stalwart Johns and the Cronulla Sharks were welcome back at the hotel, their alleged victim was not.
John Butterfield said the Sharks squad who stayed there in 2002 were "a great bunch of guys".
He criticised their accuser, then a 19-year-old university student who worked part-time at the hotel.
"It's buggered Matthew Johns's whole life," Mr Butterfield said.
Mr Butterfield said the woman had crowed to staff about a sexual liaison with two footballers in the men's toilet at a sports bar the night before the group sex session.
It is not known if they were Cronulla players.
She claims that on the following night, Cronulla players climbed in through the bathroom window of Room 15, where she was having sex with Johns and Brett Firman.
Mr Butterfield, whose son built the motel-style unit, said that was not possible.
"There's no way you can get through the window," he said.
"They were a great bunch of guys. It was a pleasure to have them here. They would be welcomed back any time."
Mr Butterfield said he felt sorry for Johns and his family.
"His kids think of him as a hero, and he is. But he's being portrayed as a gang rapist, and he isn't," he said.
"I'm just disgusted that a staff member would carry on like that. They have to realise - and it's in their contract - they are not allowed to fraternise with the guests.
"It's a no-no.
"I was really brassed off about it all, that a member of staff would do this in the hotel.
"It's a sad thing, the whole thing, but there's nothing that I could have done or that the manager could have done."
His wife, Yvonne Butterfield, said she had sympathy for the Johns family and she "wouldn't like my children to live with that".
"I do think the others who were there should all admit it, but then again it's going to cause so much more grief," she said.
Christchurch police said there was no evidence to lay criminal charges against any of the Sharks squad.
Nor would they charge the young woman with making a false complaint.
