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Maggie Kirkpatrick takes stand in legal appeal

Maggie Kirkpatrick was in court yesterday to fight her sexual assault conviction.

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Former Prisoner star Maggie Kirkpatrick took the stand yesterday to fight her conviction for sexually assaulting a troubled teenage fan in 1984.

Kirkpatrick, who played Joan`The Freak’ Ferguson, was found guilty in August of two counts of indecent assault and one charge of committing a gross act with a person under 16. She was given community service of 100 hours.

Kirkpatrick, 74, told Victorian County Court Judge Geoffrey Chettle she picked up the girl and took her to her Prahran house for a home-cooked meal to give a disturbed person “a little home life”.

“I saw it as a kindness,” Kirkpatrick told the court.

The girl was a resident in a psychiatric hospital and had been introduced to Kirkpatrick by a woman who worked on Prisoner who was also staying at the facility.

The court was played a recording of Ms Kirkpatrick’s 2014 interview with police, in which the actor gasped when a detective first put specific details of the alleged offending to the actor.

“These are untrue allegations … they are making feel quite ill,” Ms Kirkpatrick said during the interview.

A finding will be handed down today.

Source: 9News, Fairfax