Bawdy barrister Charles Waterstreet denies he’s a rake after sexual allegation
SYDNEY barrister Charles Waterstreet has become embroiled in a stranger than fiction harassment scandal. The legendary lawyer is accused of showing a young female a lewd video on her first day at work.
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HE inspired a hit TV series about a fictitious lecherous lawyer but now reality has turned on prominent barrister Charles Waterstreet, who stands accused of making sexually inappropriate comments to a young female paralegal.
Sydney University law student Tina Huang quit three hours into her first working day with Mr Waterstreet, claiming he showed her naked pictures of women and a video of a man being masturbated during her job interview.
In an article published on the New Matilda website, she alleged the self-declared model for ABC Rake’s legal libertine Cleaver Greene made her respond to emails about missed payments for sex toys and got her to organise dates for him. The barrister denies the allegations.
“He talked about attending sex parties, having many girlfriends and enjoying threesomes. He stated he only hires women under 25 who are ‘pretty young things’,” said Ms Huang who felt compelled to speak out after reading about the allegations levelled at movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
But Mr Waterstreet has told The Daily Telegraph he had been “victimised” and Ms Huang’s claims were “either false or taken out of context” and he had witnesses who disputed her account.
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He said he had shown Ms Huang material which was sexual in nature but only because it was evidence in court cases he was working on. He also claimed Ms Huang was assisting him prepare for a talk he is to give for Sydney Contemporary called Post Porn: Art, Feminism and Sex in the Age of the internet.
Mr Waterstreet produced what he described as an email exchange in which he asks her for help: “No hard feelings if not, can be from home or other place outside chambers. Not even in person.”
Ms Huang replies: “Always happy to help with anything related to feminism and/or your writing.”
Mr Waterstreet described the article as “ridiculous” and “malicious”, adding: “I am reluctant to talk and I’d rather let my lawyer do my talking but the fact of the matter is that I am the one being victimised and so I have to speak out on my own behalf.”
The colourful barrister is no stranger to controversy — making headlines in court and in the media via his columns with Fairfax Media. In one he wrote: “When I asked my former much-loved PA why my desk was covered only with briefs alleging all kinds of sexual shenanigans, she said ‘horses for courses’.”
He revealed in a Penthouse article in July that his Kings Cross flat was adorned with paintings of the vaginas of women he had slept with.
“I like blondes, redheads, and brunettes, all of them in every shade and colour,” said the 66-year-old whose autobiography was entitled ‘Precious Bodily Fluids: A Larrikin’s Memoir’.
In a Sunday Telegraph interview about his penchant for hiring attractive young women in his practice he was upfront.
“Many barristers insist on a CV. I just insist on photos.”
In court his roll call of clients include Skaf gang rapist Mohamed Sanoussi, whose release on parole he successfully argued for, the mother-in-law of Islamic State jihadist Khaled Sharrouf and religious cult leader William “Little Pebble” Kamm.
But his representation of former policeman Glen McNamara, charged with notorious detective Roger Rogerson of murdering a drug dealer, ended after the original trial was aborted. Waterstreet’s profile scaled new heights, however, via Rake which follows the trials, tribulations and serial romantic entanglements of a criminal lawyer played by Richard Roxburgh, one of the barristers many celebrity friends.
He was forced to take the producers to court to confirm his claims the main character was based on him, winning royalty payments for an adaptation planned for US television. Producers had argued while some incidents had been lifted from Mr Waterstreet’s life, it was a fictional series. In her online article entitled the Real Rake, Ms Huang said it was Mr Waterstreet’s reputation as a famous and powerful “genius” that lured her back after her interview.
“I had seen his show on Netflix. Read his articles in the newspaper. Seen the paintings of him that they hang in the galleries. So, I went back,” she said. “At my first shift we reviewed a case where he crudely insisted there existed a ‘presumption of consent’, and I answered emails for him about missed payments for sex toys, and organised dates with women.
“I quit shortly after and I’m glad I did, but I know he is still out there today hiring others.”
The NSW Bar Association said it had a strong policy on sexual harassment and would investigate any complaint.
“Sexual harassment is not condoned in any manner by the NSW Bar nor is standing by and not intervening,” president Arthur Moses said.
Celebrity pals and salacious opinions
CHARLES Waterstreet may be the closest thing Sydney has to a celebrity lawyer.
The long-haired criminal barrister is known as much for his unconventional lifestyle, media work and A-list arts connections as for his work at the Bar.
A portrait of him by Nigel Milsom took out the 2015 Archibald Prize and he was the inspiration for the fictitious ABC series Rake starring his friend Richard Roxburgh.
As well as representing many high-profile defendants, he has also authored many colourful newspaper columns, some of which shed a light on his life.
In one column for Fairfax Media Mr Waterstreet wrote: “Only a generation ago, lawyers married or bedded their secretaries as a sort of rite of passage, passing the first wife off to other hands. Not much has changed despite my herculean efforts.”
Recently he wrote a piece for men’s magazine Penthouse about Harvey Weinstein entitled, “The Hollywood casting couch is the American way”.
Mr Waterstreet also came under fire for telling an SBS journalist the notorious Bilal Skaf rape case was “based on a myth”.
But he counts many celebrities as close friends. Along with Roxburgh they include actors Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton and television host and writer Gretel Killeen.
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