{"id":236056,"date":"2025-09-18T09:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/236056\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T09:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:37:13","slug":"former-roebuck-bay-hotel-manager-found-guilty-of-raping-staff-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/236056\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Roebuck Bay Hotel manager found guilty of raping staff member"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">A former pub manager in Western Australia&#8217;s far north has been found guilty of raping one of his workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\"><strong>WARNING: This story contains details of assaults, which some readers may find distressing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Stewart Patrick Burchell, 51, has been on trial for just over a week in the Broome District Court, accused of preying on five female employees and a patron during his time running the landmark Roebuck Bay Hotel between 2017 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">After several hours of deliberation, the jury returned guilty verdicts on the sexual assault charge and nine unlawful and indecent assault charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Burchell was found not guilty of four indecent assault charges.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Roebuck Bay Hotel\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/fed6f2db7d4ff93497fa0829b76049a5\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Stewart Burchell was the general manager of the Roebuck Bay Hotel in Broome. (ABC Kimberley: Andrew Seabourne)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">He was initially on trial for 16 charges, but two counts of indecent assault were dropped on Monday due to a lack of evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Over the course of the trial, the court heard evidence from a number of women, who described an escalating pattern of predatory behaviour from Burchell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">They said he targeted them with explicit comments and text messages, while also groping some of them inappropriately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">In the case of one of the women, that culminated with Burchell raping her in her accommodation one night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The 51-year-old continued to deny any wrongdoing throughout the trial, with defence lawyer Alex Mossop questioning the credibility and accuracy of the women&#8217;s claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Burchell was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former pub manager in Western Australia&#8217;s far north has been found guilty of raping one of his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":236057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,126779,356,126777,50,126774,126775,126776,126773,126772,126778,8632],"class_list":{"0":"post-236056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-broome-news","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-indecent-assault-allegations","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-roebuck-bay-hotel","14":"tag-roebuck-hotel","15":"tag-roey","16":"tag-stewart-burchell","17":"tag-stewart-patrick-burchell","18":"tag-unlawful-and-indecent-assault-charges","19":"tag-wa-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115224631357073436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}