Australian actor Craig McLachlan has been charged with assault and sex offences.
Victoria Police confirmed law enforcement charged the 53-year-old NSW man with one count of common law assault, eight counts of indecent assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault.
McLachlan is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on February 8.
The charges are believed to coincide with the actor’s time working on the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Melbourne in 2014.
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McLachlan has been a prominent face on stages and screens in Australia, and his career has spanned decades.
The allegations against McLachlan began following a joint Fairfax Media/ABC investigation. The report saw three cast members of the musical – Christie Whelan Browne, Erika Heynatz and Angela Scundi – come forward with allegations that McLachlan performed a series of indecent acts on and off stage.
Actress Whelan Browne told Fairfax that the actor indecently assaulted her in a scene when she and McLachlan disappeared under sheets on stage.
“So he started the kissing down the neck and down the arm, but then it gradually moved to the breasts and down the stomach,” Browne alleged.
“So he would keep kissing as if he was going to keep going and I would have to swat him away.”
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She continued: “But this one night when he turned me around, he pulled my undies up so my bum cheek was out and he was kissing my bum. There is nothing I can do. I am stuck. There’s 2000 people watching me and can’t see him.
“As the tour went on he would say he could see my vagina through my white underpants – that was my costume – and he said that he could see the slit of my vagina and that he could smell it and it smells sweet.”
Nine News previously reported Browne and Heynatz having filed two separate complaints to Victoria Police.
In an email to the ABC, McLachlan denied all allegations against him.
“Frankly, they seem to be simple inventions, perhaps made for financial reasons, perhaps to gain notoriety,” he said.
“In either event, they are to the best of my knowledge utterly and entirely false.”