Harvey Weinstein: Scotland Yard investigating assault claims by three UK women

Specialist unit looking into further allegations

(Getty)

A third woman has contacted British police with sexual assault claims against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Metropolitan Police are now investigating five allegations involving Mr Weinstein, sources have confirmed, dating back to the late 1980s.

On Sunday, an alleged victim said Weinstein assaulted her in Westminster in 1992.

Earlier, Scotland Yard confirmed three allegations were made relating to sexual assaults in London in 2010, 2011 and 2015.

This followed another allegation, made against the movie mogul, passed to Scotland Yard detectives by Merseyside Police this week, relating to an alleged sexual assault in the capital in the late 1980s.

Director Martin McDonagh, on the red carpet for the UK premiere of dark comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, said he was pleased the revelations had surfaced against Weinstein — whom he referred to as a “prick”.

He added: “I don't want to be in a place where those people are working, I don't want to be around it.

“Any decent man or woman wouldn't want to be. Hopefully it's the start of something better.”

The latest allegations, made to police on Sunday, came as more British women came forward saying they were raped by Weinstein.

Hollyoaks actress Lysette Anthony has told the Metropolitan Police she was attacked by the movie mogul in her London home in the late 1980s, while another unnamed former Miramax employee said he raped her in the basement flat of his London offices in around 1992 — it is not known if she was the third complainant.

The woman, who is granted automatic anonymity as an alleged sex offences victim, said she has only confided in her husband about the attack within the last few days.

The woman, who said she chewed raw garlic and wore tatty clothes to repel Weinstein, told The Mail on Sunday: “Even after all these years, I can still wake up screaming.

“I wanted the opportunity to speak out, but I just couldn't see how.”

The fresh allegations follow several made by actresses in the US against Weinstein – four of rape and more than 30 of sexual harassment – and come as the organisation behind the Oscars expelled Mr Weinstein.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday night he was moving to strip producer Weinstein of the prestigious Legion D'Honneur award – the highest decoration in France – while Bafta has already suspended him and Mr Weinstein's wife, British designer Georgina Chapman, said she was leaving him.

Ms Anthony, 54, told The Sunday Times she met the producer when she starred in 1982 sci-fi film Krull and the alleged assault occurred a few years later.

She said it was a “pathetic, revolting” attack that had left her “disgusted and embarrassed”.

On Wednesday, Ms Anthony tweeted that she had just reported a historical crime, adding “feel sick ... so sad”.

Fellow British star Kate Winslet also spoke of her recollections of Weinstein, saying it was “absolutely deliberate” that she did not thank the director when she won her best actress Oscar, despite the fact his company financed and distributed the film.

Ms Winslet, who won the Academy Award in 2009 for The Reader – in which she played a woman hiding her past as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp – thanked 19 people by name but deliberately excluded Mr Weinstein.

She told the Los Angeles Times: “That was deliberate. That was absolutely deliberate.

“I remember being told, 'Make sure you thank Harvey if you win'. And I remember turning around and saying, 'No I won't. No I won't'.

“And it was nothing to do with not being grateful. If people aren't well-behaved, why would I thank him?

“The fact that I'm never going to have to deal with Harvey Weinstein again as long as I live is one of the best things that's ever happened and I'm sure the feeling is universal.”

On Saturday some of the film industry's most powerful figures, including Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Whoopi Goldberg, voted to expel the film producer from their ranks.

Dozens of actresses, including Hollywood A-listers Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, have made accusations of sex abuse against the 65-year-old movie mogul over the past 10 days, prompting the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to call an emergency meeting.

In a statement they said the board had “voted well in excess of the required two-thirds majority” to expel Weinstein.

Actress Rose McGowan – one of the first women to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment and who has since said he raped her – celebrated the Academy's decision with a post on Instagram.

She wrote: “We slay dragons.”

Through his spokeswoman, Mr Weinstein has “unequivocally denied” any allegations of non-consensual sex after three actresses said he had raped them in an article in The New Yorker.

As the controversy showed little sign of halting, Woody Allen, whose estranged son Ronan Farrow was among those investigating the mogul, said he was “sad” for Weinstein.

The producer is widely credited with reviving Mr Allen's career after receiving abuse allegations of his own — something the filmmaker denies.

Of Mr Weinstein, Mr Allen told the BBC: “No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness.

“And they wouldn't, because you are not interested in it. You are interested in making your movie.

“But you do hear a million fanciful rumours all the time. And some turn out to be true and some - many - are just stories about this actress, or that actor.”

There was further controversy when James Corden came under fire for cracking jokes about Weinstein at a star-studded charity gala in Los Angeles.