Warne faces new sexual allegations

As the dust started to settle over recent allegations about Shane Warne's off-the-field activities, a new allegation has emerged that will further damage his already tarnished reputation. Warne has, in fact, already withdrawn from a charity match after these allegations emerged.

The London-based Mirror newspaper reported that Angela Gallagher - "a 38-year-old mother-of-two from Melbourne" - has claimed that Warne bombarded her with raunchy text messages after they met at a nightclub. "It wasn't just text messaging," Gallagher explained. "It was sex."

The allegations were made in an Australian television interview due to be screened tonight. Gallagher is reported to have taken a lie detector test, the results of which her agent described as "amazing". He added: "A pass on a polygraph test is three-and-a-half. She scored 20."

Gallagher said that she met Warne in May at a Melbourne lap-dancing venue called The Men's Club where she worked as a stripper, and that she gave him her mobile number after they chatted. "Ten minutes later, I got my first text message from him," she explained. "They were extremely full-on sexual messages. He told me he had an open marriage. I asked him about his wife and he led me to believe they weren't together.

"I want Shane to apologise and I want him to get help," Gallagher continued. "I expect awful things will be said about me after this, but everything that happened is true and I hold my head up high."

Gallagher revealed further details on Channel Seven's Today Tonight because she was angry at public criticism against Helen Cohen Alon, a South African woman who had rasied similar allegations against Warne. "Hopefully with me speaking out that's enough for him to go back to his family and do the right thing," Gallagher said on the show.

Gallagher added that she had seen Alon's story and "said to my husband 'That is the same message that was sent to me on my phone' and I thought 'This person must make a habit of doing this to women.'"

A sexual relationship had apparently developed between Gallagher and Warne at a party. "We'd all had way too much to drink and were having a few more drinks, and I actually had to take some time out and went to the guest room to sleep because I wasn't feeling that fantastic," she said. "Shane came in about 15 minutes later ... we had sex."

Gallagher claimed that she continued to receive explicit text messages from Warne after their sexual relationship ended. Paul, Gallagher's husband of 16 years, from whom she was separated during the affair, saw one of the messages, as did her 11-year-old son. "I basically wanted to go over there and kill him," Paul told Today Tonight.

On Friday, Warne told reporters, "Any issues or allegations concerning my private life are exactly that - private, and will remain so." Simone, his long-suffering wife, came out in support of Warne saying that she stood by him. "I always have and will continue to."

Warne would be well advised to stop using his mobile phone as a way of communicating with female friends. Earlier this month he was the target of accusations from Alon, a 45-year-old South African, who maintained that she had been pestered with text messages after the pair had met a club. Before that he was stripped of the Australian vice-captaincy following allegations that he had pestered a nurse with calls while he was in England playing for Hampshire.