Yard’s Weinstein inquiry expands to cover five allegations of abuse
THE Scotland Yard inquiry into Harvey Weinstein intensified last night with detectives now investigating a five allegations of rape or sexual assault against the disgraced Hollywood producer.
The latest investigations relate to allegations of assault in London in 1992, 2010, 2011 and 2015. The announcement came after two more women accused Weinstein of raping them. Lysette Anthony, the British actress, said he had attacked her in her London home in the late Eighties. A second, unidentified woman said she was raped in 1992.
Weinstein, 65, has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex. More than two dozen women, including Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, have come forward
with allegations of unwanted advances, lewd behaviour or sexual assault.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron last night said he has begun the process of revoking Weinstein’s Legion of Honor.
On Saturday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scientists said its board had voted “well in excess of the required two-thirds majority” to expel Weinstein. The “era of wilful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behaviour and workplace harassment in our industry is over”, it said as it effectively banned from Hollywood a man whose productions garnered more than 300 Oscar nominations and 81 wins.
Police in New York have asked anyone with a complaint to come forward, and detectives in London confirmed they were looking into a total of five allegations made by three complainants.
A Met spokesman said: “Officers from the Met’s Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating the allegations. There has been no arrest at this stage.”
Anthony, who stars in the television soap Hollyoaks, told The Sunday Times she had told the Metropolitan Police about an attack in the Eighties.
She says that it happened after she had got to know the producer when she starred in the 1982 film Krull. She said it was a “pathetic, revolting” attack that had left her “disgusted and embarrassed”.
On Wednesday Anthony tweeted that she had just reported a historical crime, adding “feel sick … so sad”.
A second woman told the Mail On Sunday she was raped by Weinstein in 1992 when she was working at his film company offices in West London.
The woman, who described how she wore old clothes and chewed raw garlic to keep Weinstein away, said she had only confided in her husband about the attack within the past few days.
“Even after all these years, I can still wake up screaming,” she said. “I wanted the opportunity to speak out, but I just couldn’t see how.”
Meanwhile, Woody Allen said he felt sad for Weinstein as well as the women who suffered from his attentions.
“The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved,” he told the BBC. “Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that his life is so messed up.
“There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that.”