Emma Thompson tells of her horror after daughter was sexually assaulted on train

The Oscar winning actress has spoken out after her teen daughter was sexually assaulted. Photo / Getty Images

Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson has spoken out after her teenage daughter was sexually assaulted on public transport.

Gaia Wise, then 17, was on the London Underground, when she was targeted by an attacker last year.

Dame Emma Thompson said: "My daughter had the experience of being felt up on the Tube and felt very nervous about going out and on the tube for a long time afterwards," she told Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

She added women tend to blame themselves for not standing up to abusers, which can lead to negative thinking, and that her daughter had been no exception, reports Daily Mail.

The 59-year-old added: "She said the thing that upset her most was not the act itself but the fact that she felt cowed enough by it not to call him out.

"And I think that what we suffer as women most from our shame at not being able to say "Why are you doing this?"

"We're so shocked and undermined by these actions that we can't turn around and take the action that we want and that's the thing that sits with us and sticks with us.

"Which is so unjust."

Gaia Wise, 18, has very much followed in her mother's footsteps and is a known committed activist who has campaigned against climate change and appeared on film.

She joined an arctic drilling protest against Shell in London with her mother when she was 15.

The actress has appeared in two films, A Walk in the Woods in 2015, which starred her mother, Nick Nolte and Robert Redford and Last Chance Harvey in 2008 also starring her mother and Dustin Hoffman.

Emma Thompson has been very vocal about sex abuse in Hollywood, she previously said that behavior like Weinstein's is "endemic to the system," and something she has experienced with "many" other men in similar positions over the years.

Asked if there were others in Hollywood like Weinstein, she said: "Of course, many, many...I spent my 20s trying to keep old men's tongues out of my mouth."

The Academy award-winning star urged female victims of sex attacks to be less "unkind, to themselves too, whether they were able to defend themselves or not".

She added that they should be "compassionate about their reactions then say: 'Now, next time would I be able to do it differently as a woman?'"

She dismissed the idea that Weinstein's behaviour was the result of addiction.

"I don't think you can describe him as a sex addict. He's a predator," said Thompson.

"He's an actual predator, he's dangerous and what he's done and what he's doing is criminal."

"What I find sort of extraordinary is that this man is at the top of a very particular iceberg... (At) the top of the ladder is a system of harassment, and belittling, and bullying, and interference, and what my mother would have referred to in the old days as 'pestering'."

Thompson said that global movements such as #MeToo and Time's Up had done great work in highlighting abuse and gender inequality.

Thompson said: "We are moving forward. There's a lot of work being done but it is changing and I am hopeful about it."

Dame Emma is set to star in new film The Children Act which is about a child who refuses to have a blood transfusion for religious reasons.

She is married to actor Greg Wise, 52.