Prisoner star Maggie Kirkpatrick has told a court she took a vulnerable young fan home and cooked her dinner as a kindness, as she fights her child sexual assault conviction.
The actor took the stand in her appeal hearing in the Victorian County Court where she denied touching a 14-year-old girl in 1984.
Kirkpatrick, 74, told Judge Geoffrey Chettle she picked up the girl and took her to her Prahran house for a home-cooked meal to give a disturbed person "a little home life".
"I saw it as a kindness," Kirkpatrick told the court.
The girl was a resident in a psychiatric hospital and had been introduced to Kirkpatrick by a woman who worked on the TV show Prisoner, who was also staying at the facility.
The court had earlier heard the teenager was obsessed with Prisoner, in which Kirkpatrick played prison warder Joan "The Freak" Ferguson.
When asked why she didn't have a third person or a chaperone present when she took the girl home, Kirkpatrick said, "Frankly, it didn't occur to me".
The complainant had told the Melbourne Magistrates Court in a hearing earlier this year she and Kirkpatrick ate dinner before going upstairs to a bedroom, where Kirkpatrick sexually assaulted her.
The woman said Kirkpatrick had seemed frustrated she didn't know what to do.
Afterwards, Kirkpatrick gave the girl a yellow jumper and a signed photograph.
Kirkpatrick denied the charges.
In August she was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and one count of committing a gross act on a person under 16.
The Sydney-based actor was ordered to serve an 18-month community corrections order and to perform 100 hours of community work.
During her appeal hearing on Monday, she said on the night in question she sent the girl back to the psychiatric hospital in a taxi after catching her stealing alcohol.
She said she felt uncomfortable with a young lady whose background she didn't know developing a dependency on her, and "perhaps using me as a bit of a crutch".
Judge Chettle will rule on the matter on Tuesday morning.
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