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Former President of the United States George Bush Snr has issued an apology through his spokesman after an actress, Heather Lind accused him of sexual assault during a photo shoot three years ago.

In the apology, Bush claims that the gesture was aimed at making the actress feel at ease during the shoot.

The allegation surfaced in an Instagram post from Lind featuring a photograph of Bush, 93, shaking hands with former President Barack Obama during an appearance of all five living former presidents at Saturday's hurricane fund-raising benefit.

In the post, Lind, 34, said that seeing that photo reminded her of her own meeting with the 41st president three years earlier, when, according to her, "he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo."

"He didn't shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side," Lind wrote. "He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again."

Lind said the former first lady "rolled her eyes as if to say, ‘not again.'"

Although the initial instagram post has since been deleted, the former President has gone on to issue an apology regarding the incident.

Bush's spokesman Jim McGrath, issued a statement in response to Lind's post that sought to explain the former president's behavior as an attempt to make light of social awkwardness posed by his own physical disability during photo sessions.

Confined to a wheelchair, as Bush has been for about the past five years, "his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he take pictures," McGrath said.

"To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke - and on occasion, he has patted women's rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate," McGrath wrote. "To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely."