Polanski's paid for sex scandal, says Woody Allen

Actor and film-maker Woody Allen restated his support for fugitive director Roman Polanski, under house arrest over a 33-year-old child sex scandal.

In an interview with France Info radio from the Cannes Film Festival, Mr Allen said Mr Polanski, 76, "was embarrassed by the whole thing", "has suffered" and "has paid his dues".

He said Mr Polanski was "an artist and is a nice person" who "did something wrong and he paid for it".

Mr Polanski, the Oscar-winning director of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist, was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and part of the hypnotic drug Quaalude and raping her at Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles in 1977.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse but fled to France before sentencing and remained a fugitive until Swiss authorities arrested him on September 26 last year on a US warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. He was taken into custody in September and is currently under house arrest in Gstaad.

Last week, new allegations surfaced when British actress Charlotte Lewis, 42, claimed Mr Polanski had sexually abused her when she was 16.