Cell Block H soap star Kirkpatrick cleared on appeal of abusing teenager

Prisoner: Cell Block H actress Maggie Kirkpatrick broke down in tears after her convictions for molesting a 14-year-old girl more than 30 years ago were overturned. The 74-year-old Australian was cleared when the Victoria County Court upheld her appeal against two convictions for indecently assaulting the teenager in 1984 and one count of gross indecency. Kirkpatrick sobbed as she hugged supporters after the court ruling.

It’s been rather difficult, but I’m very happy with the result.

Actress Maggie Kirkpatrick

The actress played sadistic prison warden Joan “The Freak” Ferguson in the Prisoner, as it was known in Australia, and the series ran from 1979 to 1986. Sydney-based Kirkpatrick met the 14-year-old at a Melbourne psychiatric hospital, where the girl had been treated for substance abuse and a personality disorder. The teenager, now a 45-year-old mother of three, first went to police in 2013. Judge Geoffrey Chettle said that in 1984 the complainant was “clearly vulnerable and unstable”, and that she was a careful and consistent witness, but her evidence was not independently supported. He concluded that he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offending had occurred.

Celebrity Maggie Kirkpatrick