Australia: Prisoner Cell Block H actress Maggie Kirkpatrick charged with child sex offences

Australian soap star Maggie Kirkpatrick who played a prison officer nicknamed 'The Freak in Prisoner Cell Block H faces child sex charges.

The 74-year-old denies two counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency with a person under 16, according to the Herald Sun.

The alleged offence involved a 13-year-old girl and is said to have taken place in the 1980s.

Kirkpatrick will fight to clear her name. "I need to go to court to have this ridiculous situation quashed," she said.

"Allegations have been levelled at me, yes. Are they true? Absolutely not.

"The evidence is in the court. I don't think it's appropriate that I say any more."

The actress will appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on 19 August.

She has appeared in a number of Australian TV shows including Hey Dad! and in 1991 she played Marilyn's aunt Jean Chambers in Home and Away.

Kirkpatrick's Hey Dad! co-star Robert Hughes was jailed for 10 years and nine months last year after being found guilty of child sex offences.

Her website biography stated that she and her brother were brought up by a single mother after their father was killed in North Africa when she was six-months-old.