Craig McLachlan sues over harassment allegations

CRAIG McLachlan has accused one of the women who alleged he indecently assaulted her of committing “indecent acts”.

GOLD Logie winning actor Craig McLachlan has filed defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media and the ABC after they reported on allegations he sexually harassed several former colleagues.

One of McLachlan’s accusers, former Rocky Horror Picture Show co-star Christie Whelan Browne, has also been named in the defamation suit.

McLachlan’s statement of claim was lodged in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon and principally targets Browne, who he says committed “indecent acts” on him.

Court documents show McLachlan claimed Ms Whelan was “a notoriously foul-mouthed person who publicly distributed offensive matter”.

He claimed she gave him “wedgies” and grabbed at his boxer shorts while commenting about genitals. The Daily Telegraph reports that McLachlan further alleges he was “goosed” by the actress — which is an act of poking someone between the buttocks, something he alleges happened “on numerous occasions’.”

Actor Christie Whelan Browne, who came forward with harassment allegations against Craig McLachlan, is named in the defamation suit. Picture: 7:30/ABC

Entertainment reporter, Peter Ford told This Morning that McLachlan’s claims against Whelan Browne are shocking in the showbiz world.

“The fact that he is going after Christie Whelan Browne is a great shock to people in the showbiz world,” Ford told the show. “Christie and her husband, Roland, much loved in the theatre world.

“If you read all the full details (of McLachlan’s claims), it is crude and explicit stuff. The things he is claiming are probably worse than what she was claiming.

“The bigger problem is when people read about what has happened to Christie Whelan Browne, it will make people cautious about coming forward and wanted to talk to journalists. “That is the big problem. Christie Whelan Browne has good people around her and I hope she has a vague idea about what she was getting yourself into.”

The claim states Whelan Browne used a term to describe “a deviant sexual act” while they were both filming an episode television show The Wrong Girl.

His defence case has examined Whelan Browne’s Instagram account, finding lewd and sexually suggestive posts showing penis straws and featuring the c-word.

“The plaintiff has been greatly injured in his business, personal and professional reputation and has been and will be brought into public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt,” the claim states.

Whelan Browne claimed in ABC and Fairfax interviews that while the show was touring McLachlan would “always tell me he could see my vagina through my white underpants that were my costume. And he said that he could see the slit of my vagina”.

But in his defamation claim McLachlan alleges Ms Whelan Browne said: “D’ya reckon the audience’ll see my vag” and “Maybe just the slit”

McLachlan has engaged prominent barrister Stuart Littlemore QC to run the case.

A Fairfax Media and ABC joint investigation in early January reported several cast members of the 2014 run of The Rocky Horror Show accused 52-year-old McLachlan of touching them or exposing himself to them.

The allegations McLachlan is suing over pertain to his time in a Melbourne production of The Rocky Horror Show. Picture: Calum Robertson

Fairfax Media and the ABC on Thursday told AAP they wouldn’t be commenting on the legal action.

Mr Littlemore said he would “absolutely not” be commenting.

Comment has been sought from Mollison Keightley Management which represents McLachlan.