Harvey Weinstein to be charged with sex assaults in UK | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

The Crown Prosecution Service announced yesterday that it has authorised Scotland Yard to charge the veteran film producer with two counts of indecent assault. Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: “Charges have been authorised against Harvey Weinstein following a review of the evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police. “The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned criminal proceedings against the defendant are active and he has the right to a fair trial.”

The alleged victim is now in her 50s.

Yard detectives have been investigating allegations against Weinstein in an inquiry codenamed Operation Kaguyak since 2017. Ms Ainslie added: “The function of the CPS is not to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for a criminal court to consider.

“The CPS assessment of any case is not in any sense a finding of, or implication of, any guilt or criminal conduct.”

She continued: “It is not a finding of fact, which can only be made by a court, but rather an assessment of what it might be possible to prove to a court.”

The Yard did not confirm if detectives are still probing other allegations made against Weinstein in the UK or if the investigation is now closed.

Born in New York in 1952, Weinstein and his brother Bob co-founded entertainment giant Miramax which made a series of successful independent movies. The list includes Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), The Crying Game (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Weinstein won an Oscar for producing Shakespeare In Love, which starred fellow Academy Award winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Dame Judi Dench.

The brothers set up Miramax in the 1970s with the profits of a concert promotion company which helped acts including Frank Sinatra, The Who, Jackson Browne and the Rolling Stones.

Its name is a tribute to their parents Miriam and Max.

The brothers sold Miramax to Disney in the 1990s but remained heads of the company. They left in 2005 to set up another independent production business called the Weinstein Company.