img src="/myfiles/Images/2015/08/20/li04_big.jpg" class='article-photo' width="500" alt="Australian actress in "Prisoner" charged with child abuse" / Maggie Kirkpatrick MELBOURNE — Veteran actress Maggie Kirkpatrick, who played a violent and corrupt warden nicknamed “The Freak” in a cult Australian soap opera set in a women's prison, appeared in a court Wednesday charged over child sex allegations dating back to the 1980s. The series was known as “Prisoner” in Australia, and “Prisoner: Cell Block H” or “Caged Women” overseas. It ran from 1979 to 1986. Kirkpatrick, 74, whose character Joan “The Freak” Ferguson would molest inmates with the excuse of conducting body searches, was charged in Melbourne Magistrates Court with two counts of indecently assaulting a 13-year-old girl in the 1980s and one count of gross indecency with a person under 16. When police laid charges last month, Kirkpatrick denied the allegation. “I need to go to court to have this ridiculous situation quashed,” the Sydney-based actress told The Daily Telegraph newspaper. “Allegations have been leveled at me, yes. Are they true? Absolutely not,” she said. — AP
