Two cast members from hit Australian reality series Below Deck Down Under have been sacked amid a sexual misconduct scandal on the show’s set.

Luke Jones and Laura Bileskalne were fired after separately getting into the beds of other members of the crew without consent, in the episode aired on August 7.

The latest episode of the show, which follows the jobs of staff catering to guests on a superyacht, included the moment Jones entered the cabin of cast member Margot Sisson naked and as she slept and attempted to climb into her bed.

It also included Bileskalne entering the room of cast member Adam Kodra and trying to massage and kiss him without consent before producers told her to ‘come down’.

UK domestic abuse charity Refuge praised the show for its handling of the incidents after the production team attempted to intervene and both Jones and Bileskalne were let go from their roles.

A spokesman for the charity said the episodes had ‘sparked vital conversations around consent’ and added: ‘We’re pleased to see that action was quickly taken to ensure a safe environment.’

On the show’s latest episode, which aired on Monday night, Luke Jones was terminated after climbing into the bed of Margot Sisson, who was naked and asleep, ‘without consent.’

Jones had been the ship’s bosun, the officer in charge of equipment and the crew.

Second stew Laura Bileskalne’s reaction to the incident also led to her getting let go by Captain Jason Chambers after she insisted to Sisson that Jones wasn’t to blame.

She was ultimately fired for showing ‘little respect and empathy’ toward Sisson as well as crossing boundaries with Adam Kodra.

The episode showed Sisson state over dinner that she was ‘really drunk’ before heading to bed.

Despite her state, Jones was seen repeatedly trying to flirt with Sisson and asked her to ‘cuddle’ with him as they sat in the back of a car together.

Chief stew Aesha Scott even told deckhand Culver Bradbury that she was going to keep an eye out for her, helping her back to her cabin and assuring her she would not let ‘any drunkenness’ get ‘taken advantage of’.

Sisson said ‘I am glad that you’re here’ but stated clearly: ‘I don’t want to go in the hot tub, I want to go bed. All I want is water and bed, no Luke.’

Returning from the hot tub, Jones went to Sisson’s cabin where she was alone and asleep.

Producers stepped in and told the bosun to leave her alone.

‘Can you f**k off for a second?’ he told the cameramen.

‘We can’t do that, she said no, she said no,’ the producers told him.

Scott returned to the cabin and told Sisson what had happened.

‘Oh my God. Ew, he was naked?’ Sisson responded, to which Scott asked: ‘Did you consent to him being in here?’  

‘No, I was asleep,’ said Margot. ‘I did not invite that at all.’

After establishing that Sisson was safe, Captain Jason was seen reviewing the night’s events with Luke the next morning, which he accepted, before ‘terminating’ his contract.

In the same episode, stewardess Laura Bileskalne was fired after then climbing into crewmate Adam Kodra’s bunkbed and trying to massage him. 

Kodra had told Bileskalne multiple times that he wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with her beyond a friendship.

He told the show’s producers: ‘I’m not interested in Laura in the slightest.

‘I’ve told her a million times, like I just wanna be friends, but it’s just not getting the point across so I don’t know what to do.’

After a night of drinking, Bileskalne followed Kodra to his cabin.

She told him ‘we need to close the door’ while holding a tube of moisturiser in her hand.

Kodra climbed into the top bunk and tried to go to sleep, but Laura put lotion on his back in an attempt to massage him.

Producers again were forced to step in, ordering her to stop.

‘Laura, I got a message from producers telling you to come down,’ the cameraman informed her.

She then kept rubbing Kodra’s back, before a producer burst in and told her to ‘step down’ and go back to her own cabin. 

Captain Jason also sacked Bileskalne over the incident, and for showing little empathy with Sisson.

The events took place last year but aired for the first time on Monday.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that the Below Deck franchise has been embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal.

Last year, Below Deck Sailing Yacht caused firestorm on social media after a controversial sexual encounter between two cast members.

Stewardess Ashley Marti had sex with the yacht’s First Officer Gary King while he was highly intoxicated, which many viewers deemed ‘inappropriate’.

Below Deck Down Under first aired in March 2022.

The show is a spin-off of the American reality TV show, Below Deck. 

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Published: 03:29 EDT, 5 June 2023 | Updated: 20:27 EDT, 5 June 2023

PWC’s London headquarters has been dragged deeper into a tax leaks scandal that began in Sydney, following the launch of an investigation by Australian police.

Dozens of partners around the world have been caught up in a brazen scheme in which confidential briefings from the Australian government were seemingly exploited to help US tech companies avoid tax.

Their names are blanked out in a cache of heavily redacted emails but they include employees from the British accounting giant’s offices in London, New York and Dublin.

PwC is now under growing pressure to reveal their identities, as the scandal has sparked a national outcry in Australia and threatens to engulf its global operations.

One senator told the Mail it has ‘global implications’ for PwC as it was clearly not just a ‘few bad apples in Sydney’.

The Treasury has asked the Australian Federal Police to investigate PwC, including its former Sydney-based senior partner Peter-John Collins.

In another blow, it has ordered PwC to stand down staff who knew about the leaks from working on existing government and future contracts, pending the results of a separate inquiry.

Appearing before the senate yesterday, Department of Finance secretary Jenny Wilkinson described the debacle as an ‘abuse of confidence and trust’, saying she had ‘serious concerns about the broader culture within the firm’.

The scandal has even prompted bosses at rival KPMG, which has also attracted its fair share of controversy, to tell staff in an email that they could ‘no longer sit by and watch our profession be tarnished by the unethical actions of a few.’

Collins advised the Treasury on measures to combat international tax avoidance. As the head of international tax, he is accused of leaking briefings from officials to at least 53 PwC colleagues over several years.

This information was then used to drum up business with US tech behemoths and help them sidestep the new laws as part of an initiative codenamed Project North America.

The ruse saved companies millions of dollars in tax, while generating at least $2.5million (£1.3million) in fees in 2016 alone for PwC.

Dr Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer of Australia, has branded PwC’s behaviour as ‘inexcusable’ and an ‘appalling breach of trust’.

This week he said ‘further steps’ will be taken, amid calls to launch a criminal investigation.

The scandal surfaced in January when it emerged that Collins had been banned by Australia’s tax practitioner’s board from practising for two years for leaking confidential information from PwC’s biggest client in Australia – the federal government.

Since then, the story has gathered momentum, gravitating from the business sections to the front pages – even featuring in a special report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship youth radio station Triple J last week.

Earlier this month, several senior executives from the UK and the US flew to Australia in a desperate attempt to contain the crisis.

They included London-based head of PwC’s global legal and tax operation Carol Stubbings. But their task has been made more difficult with the police investigation and the recent publication of 148 pages of damning emails sent between Collins and PwC colleagues around the world.

The names of the individuals, bar Collins himself, are all blacked out.

They include the addresses of PwC’s global headquarters in London, as well as New York, Singapore, and Dublin.

Some of the emails begin with phrases such as ‘for your eyes only’, making it clear the information is classified.

In one of them, a PwC employee describes the information as ‘Awesome for our MAAL defence work’, referring to the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law, introduced in the 2015 budget.

One of the partners included in the exchange of emails was Tom Seymour, the chief executive of PwC Australia, who led the company’s tax operation. He has taken early retirement, but insisted that he did not know that the information was confidential.

Just two other Australian board members – the head of its financial advisory division and its chief reputation and risk officer – have stepped down but remain partners.

Labour senator Deborah O’Neill, who forced the tax regulator to hand over the emails that it uncovered, is now leading the push to name all the individuals involved.

‘The emails not only document Collins’ construction of the scheme but the celebration of the scheme by his co-workers in PwC,’ she said.

‘The partners were not just a couple of bad apples in the Sydney office. They included international participants from PwC Global all around the world, including the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Singapore and Ireland. So this has global implications.

‘We are talking here about an undeniable scheme of theft and deception, designed to cost the Australian people and profit Pricewaterhouse Coopers.’

The senator said she would also be pushing for the identities of the US tech companies targeted by PwC.

During a senate inquiry into tax avoidance in 2015, senior executives from US tech companies testified that their companies did not engage in aggressive tax schemes in Australia.

A month later, a number of US tech firms were alleged to have been contacted by PwC Australia.

Just a few hours after former Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey announced the MAAL in the 2015 budget, PwC told them it had developed a plan to get around the crackdown.

An inquiry into the scandal was announced last week by PwC, headed by the former boss of telecoms giant Telstra Dr Ziggy Switkowski.

PwC’s US and UK operations have confirmed that they will co-operate.

However, the inquiry will not report back until September.

Even then, the firm has only committed to publish a summary of the findings.

O’Neill and fellow senators have described this as part a ‘cover-up’ and dismissed the credibility of the review.

The Australian government has been urged to boycott PwC, which has secured almost £300million in federal government contracts during the past two years.

PwC has said it will ‘not hesitate’ to take actions recommended by the review it commissioned, including ‘exiting further people and partners from the firm’.

Kristin Stubbins, who is the interim chief executive of PwC Australia, has said that the company is ‘committed to learning from our mistakes’.