‘A difficult pill to swallow’: Former Neighbours star Scott McGregor breaks silence over assault allegation

Scott McGregor has been fighting a long battle against an assault charge and finally speaks about the incident for the first time — and how he is moving forward.

‘A difficult pill to swallow.’ Scott McGregor has opened up about the allegation that changed everything. Picture: David Caird

Scott McGregor will never forget the moment when police knocked on the door of his Melbourne home, charged him with sexual touching and took him away, his wife Bianka Voigt and their two small children looking on in stunned silence. “I was in complete shock; I had no idea what I’d done,” he tells Stellar of that fateful day in November last year. “I felt like I was being part of a movie, or a nightmare.”

Yet in that surreal and awful instant, the many years he had spent as an actor in a law-enforcement role kicked in to steady him.

“I was questioned,” the 42-year-old explains to Stellar, “and it sounds silly, but playing a detective on Neighbours [McGregor portrayed Mark Brennan from 2010 to 2020] the one thing you learn really quickly is that you never comment when you’re first questioned, because anything you say can be used against you.”

After a nearly two-year ordeal in which he has maintained his silence out of respect for the rights of the complainant and the legal process, McGregor is ready to tell his side of the story for the first time since the sexual touching charge was dropped in August.

“If you haven’t been run through the court system before, no-one wins,” he says. “I know it’s already affected my career, and I’m just going to have to try and do what I can to rectify that and move forward.”

Scott McGregor and his wife Bianka Voigt. Picture: David Caird for Stellar

His first step is to make clear what happened on the night of February 20, 2022, at the Hotel Esplanade in the beachy Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. McGregor recalls having a few beers with his mates when he was approached by a woman he had never met before. “She, in her words, noticed me from television,” he tells Stellar. “[She] and her friends Googled me while they were there.”

Initially courteous, McGregor says he then made it clear he wasn’t interested in socialising further and turned away. “She was nice enough when she first came up,” he explains. “But by the third and fourth time I said to her, as nicely as possible, ‘Can you just leave me alone?’ And I don’t know whether that embarrassed her, but she quickly turned … she was the antagonist and the aggressor.”

Nine months later on that November day, he was charged with intentional sexual touching without consent. In August, the prosecution concurred with Melbourne magistrate Simon Zebrowski, who said what happened was “a single non-sexual episode that was extraordinarily minor in the circumstances”. The charge was withdrawn.

After McGregor accepted responsibility for a common law assault charge instead – for what Zebrowski called “one momentary very slight touch, that’s all” – it was deemed a matter of diversion, an order in which he neither pleaded guilty nor was he formally found guilty or convicted. If, by a specified date this month, McGregor writes a letter of apology to the complainant, a thank you letter to the police informant and donates $300 to charity, the charge will be officially expunged.

Had a trial proceeded, “I knew from day dot that I was going to be found innocent. There was no way I was going to be found guilty,” McGregor insists. “[But] I accepted the diversion order because I didn’t want to put my family through anymore. [Lawyers] said to me, ‘You’ll have no record, there’ll be no guilty plea, there’s no guilty verdict.’ It was a complete and utter non-event.”

McGregor is relieved with the result, but admits, “To have the magistrate even talk about how it should never have even gone to court … I don’t wish it upon anyone. I can’t tell you how difficult it’s been. I’m glad it’s over. But the problem now is, you just know it’s always going to be there.”

By “there” McGregor means stories about the incident that have left a digital footprint. At one point, he thought he had landed a lucrative gig through an old university friend only to be told a couple of days later, as he recounts, “‘I’m so sorry. You’ve been pulled off the job because the CEO Googled your name.’ It’s really difficult to know that you’re potentially not even being looked at anymore because of someone’s false allegation. It’s a perception thing, right? The allegations have given me a reason to stop and assess what is important in life, my family and our happiness. It has made me question, ‘Do I even bother going out anymore?’”

Although McGregor vows to return to acting one day, a move encouraged by Voigt, his wife of nearly five years, he admits he is working on regaining his sense of self by sharing his experience and expressing his feelings openly. “I’ve got a mother and I’ve got a mother-in-law who I absolutely adore and love,” he says. “And I’ve got a wife and I’ve got a sister and I’ve got a daughter. My respect for women couldn’t be higher. So to have that questioned in public? Well, it’s a difficult pill to swallow.”

Read the full interview with Scott McGregor and more inside Stellar via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).

Originally published as ‘A difficult pill to swallow’: Former Neighbours star Scott McGregor breaks silence over assault allegation