Langham weeps 'I'm no paedo'
- 00:01:28
- ITN
Langham weeps 'I'm no paedo'
Comedy actor Chris Langham has wept as he denied being a paedophile at his trial for sexually assaulting an underage girl.Langham, 58, appeared in the witness box for the first time since the case began nine days ago. He told Maidstone Crown Court he had been arrogant for looking at child porn and said he realised there was no excuse for it.Earlier, jurors were directed by Judge Philip Statman to return not guilty verdicts on four indecent assault charges against the Bafta award-winning actor and star of the hit BBC political satire The Thick Of It.Langham denies 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child between September and November 2005 and faces six counts of indecent assault and two counts of serious sexual assault between January 1996 and April 2000. He denies all the charges.Referring to his arrest for looking at child porn on the web, he said: "They (police) had me on a plate because I said I did it, but they weren't happy. They wanted to convict me on the basis I had an abnormal interest in children, that I'm a paedophile, and I'm not."With his voice becoming shaky, Langham continued: "That part of the crime is a life sentence and that is the part of the crime I did not do. I have to stand up and tell you the truth but I will not stand here and admit a crime I didn't commit."He added: "I'd like to make it clear I am not taking the crime I committed lightly. I did it in an arrogant way, I know who I am. I know who I am. And I did a very arrogant thing to not think that the law applied to me."Earlier, Judge Statman, who directed the jury to find Langham not guilty of four indecent assault charges, said: "The Crown accepts that there is no evidence to support these particular counts on the indictment."May I please stress to you that this in no way affects your consideration of the other counts because you will be looking at the evidence separately in due course."On Wednesday, harrowing images of the child pornography allegedly found on his computer were shown to the jury and proceedings had to be halted when one woman broke down in tears.Jurors were shown five images taken from child porn video clips ranging in length from just three seconds to almost six minutes in order for the prosecution to show their quality.Videoclip titles made reference to "Kiddy 11-year-old", "13-year-old preteen underage" and "preteen sex education".© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
ITN | July 26, 2007
