
Johnathan Thurston remained quiet for 14 years.
The former Bulldog was sworn to secrecy when his teammates were accused of gang rape.
Now he’s broken his silence about the 2004 Coffs Harbour rape scandal that nearly derailed his career, before it had even begun.
According to Thurston’s memoir, Johnathan Thurston: The Autobiography, an unnamed woman allegedly “slept with six” Bulldogs players at the team’s hotel on the Wednesday night.
JT speaks to 60 Minutes…
Thurston was not involved in the incident.
On the Saturday night, according to Thurston, the 20-year-old woman wanted to meet up with the players again but they weren’t interested.
She tried to enter their cab as they were leaving the Plantation Hotel to go back to the Novotel Hotel where they were staying.
“One of the boys pushed her out and gave her a gob-full. She wasn’t impressed,” he wrote.
That morning, the woman allegedly had consensual sex with one of the players near the hotel’s pool.
By midday, the team would hear the woman had accused “three to six” players of gang rape.
“I was stunned,” Thurston wrote.
“I was not involved in any capacity with the woman who made the accusations.
“I was not involved with her on the Wednesday night and I did not see what happened in the pool area on the Sunday morning.”