Working for Karen Danczuk... the brother she accused of raping her hundreds of times as a child 

  • Karen Danczuk was still employing her brother Michael Burke when she complained to police he raped her as a child
  • Michael has vehemently denied his sister's shocking allegations
  • He said: ‘A couple of weeks before she claimed I’d raped her, she was offering me her business'

Family business: Karen’s brother Michael at Danczuk’s Delicatessen

Family business: Karen’s brother Michael at Danczuk’s Delicatessen

Karen Danczuk was still employing her brother Michael Burke in the cafe she co-owned with her husband when she complained to the police that he had raped her hundreds of times as a child, starting when she was six and he was just 11. 

Michael and his father, Martin, told The Mail on Sunday that when she made her allegations – which Michael vehemently denies – they and Karen’s sister, Claire, were negotiating to buy Karen out of the cafe business. 

Karen had opened Danczuk’s Delicatessen – owned by her and Simon Danczuk – in late 2013. 

In early February this year, Karen gave interviews claiming that an older ‘family friend’ used to abuse her on Sundays, after she had had her bath. In another interview later that month she made her claims about the rapes and named Michael as the attacker. 

Michael told me: ‘A couple of weeks before she claimed I’d raped her, she was offering me her business, where I’d been working for about six months. I said we could run it for a few weeks to see if the business was any good.’ 

Martin told me: ‘This was so long as we weren’t going to be liable for any unpaid debts.’ Martin added that Karen’s failure to agree to this was the reason the deal fell through. 

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Furious: Michael Burke last week with his father Martin

Furious: Michael Burke last week with his father Martin

In fact, Martin said: ‘There were unopened letters from the electric, the phones, and so on. She’d not paid a bill for months.’

The cafe closed permanently soon after Mrs Danczuk went to the police with her allegations. 

It can now be revealed that Mrs Danczuk has also failed to pay three months’ rent on the cafe’s lease. 

She signed this lease personally, rather than in the name of the limited company she jointly owned with her husband. 

Last month the landlord, Stephen Butterfield, obtained a court judgment ordering Karen to pay him £2,000, and has said that she is bound to pay him £8,000 a year for the next three years. Michael, who is married with three children, told me that Karen’s rape claims had ruined his life. 

He has not been charged but his name has been widely publicised. ‘I can’t do my usual job as a security guard,’ he said, ‘so I can’t support my kids.’ 

Karen said in interviews that her father Martin had left the family home when the supposed rapes began. 

He says he did not leave for several years. Martin said: ‘I knew it [the rape allegations] was a lie even when she said it was this “family friend”. But to say it was Michael went beyond the pale.’

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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