The Braveheart star and Rosalind Ross were leaving an Australian Israeli Film Festival event in Sydney when Sydney Daily Telegraph photographer Kristi Miller took photos of them, prompting the actor to launch an alleged verbal and physical attack.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph podcast, Miller claimed, "I took two frames, then I ran to get in front of them, so I had my back to them, and the next thing I knew, he had shoved me from behind. Did not see him coming. I was just shocked that I was being pushed - shoved - in the back. I didn't fall over, but I stumbled.

"Then I turned around and he was straight up in my face, basically nose-to-nose. He was just abusing me, spitting on me. Saying some real vile things. Swore at me, every word you could think of... the c-word, the f-word, all of it... completely red in the face, out of control, literally didn't breathe."

When asked what the actor/director said to her, Miller alleged, "He called me a dog, that I disrespected him... that I'm a vile, worthless person, that I'm disgusting, that I will go to hell. Plenty of awful crazy, crazy things."

Miller, who has worked more than two decades as a news photographer, claims she told him she wasn't antagonising him, and added, "I said calmly to him that I'm a mum with three kids, and this is my job and career, and he told me I need to get a new job.

"He was in my face and his girlfriend said to me, 'I'm so sorry'. She looked concerned. She got him by the shoulder and said, 'That's enough. That's enough', (and) basically pulled him away from me."

Gibson, who is in Australia preparing for his upcoming World War Two drama Hacksaw Ridge, was previously charged with battery for slapping his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in 2011, and, in 2006, he was arrested for a DUI, an incident in which he hurled anti-Semitic remarks at a Jewish police officer.