Aussie star Craig McLachlan accused of sexual assault, harassment

Australian actor Craig McLachlan is the latest celebrity to be accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour and bullying.

The 52-year-old star of Home and Away and The Doctor Blake Mysteries has been accused of abuse and harassment by a number of women he worked with in 2014 on the set of Rocky Horror Show.

Two have lodged a complaint with police, alleging Mr McLachlan exposed himself and groped them, after complaints to the production company were ignored.

"He's really calculated and very manipulative, a predator," actress Erika Heynatz told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"He's a larrikin, up for a laugh and certainly, when we all first met him, that's indeed how he came across," said another unnamed actress.

"But there is another side to this man that he has very, very craftily and cleverly disguised from people for so long. It's like this split personality. The other personality is this sinister, predatory behaviour."

Christie Whelan Browne, who played Janet in the 2014 production of Rocky Horror, says McLachlan went "off-script" during a scene where the pair were in bed, sexually assaulting her while 2000 people watched, unaware of what he was doing under the sheets.

"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."

McLachlan is currently on tour with a new production of Rocky Horror, and said the allegations are "simple inventions, perhaps made for financial reasons, perhaps to gain notoriety".

"These allegations are all made up," the Logie Award-winning actor told the Herald via email.

As for Whelan Browne's claims, McLachlan said "actors have to perform certain actions, all of which flow from the show itself", but denied touching her inappropriately.

Heynatz accused McLachlan of exposing himself to her, which he denied. She told the Herald he once also "straddled me on the couch, knee either side and started kissing my neck".

"That's not normal workplace behaviour, that's not normal, that's not okay."

McLachlan said he had "no recollection" of doing that.

When a male cast member raised concerns about McLachlan's alleged behaviour, McLachlan is said to have flown into a rage and called the rest of the cast and crew "untalented and ungrateful c**ts".

McLachlan told the Herald the women had "thousands of opportunities" to raise their concerns but never did, but the women say they were inspired by the recent revelations from Hollywood, kickstarted by the outing of producer Harvey Weinstein as an alleged predator.

The production company declined to comment, but said in a legal response to the complaints the actresses "may have made defamatory statements" and that it provided a workplace "free of bullying or unlawful harassment".

Actors and actresses at Monday's Golden Globes ceremony are expected to dress in black to protest the industry's widespread sexual harassment problem.

Newshub.