I feel uneasy about Weinstein’s accuser

complicated. In 1997, she had a hotel room encounter with him, but reached a £70,000 settlement with him over the incident.

More recently, Weinstein offered her hush money as the accusations against him began to stack up: £700,000 in exchange for signing an Nda. She responded by asking for £4.2 million, reasoning that: ‘I could probably have gotten him up to just over £2 million.’

When the New York Times broke the scandal, Miss McGowan dropped her case against Weinstein and reinvented herself as an outspoken feminist on Twitter, leading the charge against him.

‘I was like — ew, gross, you’re disgusting, I don’t want your money, that would make me feel disgusting,’ she said, even though she had taken his cash before.

It is a difficult issue, particularly as a number of actresses did sign Ndas and accept Weinstein’s money, allowing him to carry on with his repellent behaviour. The best interpretation is that the women were intimidated and did not realise they were being enablers.

Yet it cannot be ignored that when one takes hush money to settle any complaint, you prevent others from being protected.

here in the UK, judges and policymakers should be looking at these increasingly popular agreements. and frowning upon them.