A police computer expert today described how he found graphic child pornography videos on a laptop recovered from the home of the Bafta-winning comedy actor Chris Langham.

Christopher Crute, a forensic computer analyst for Kent police, said file names made reference to children as young as seven, and some included the words Lolita, incest, rape, whore and hussy.

Mr Crute also told the jury at Maidstone crown court the initials PTHC on some of the files stood for “pre-teen hardcore”.

The files had been downloaded from the internet to an Apple laptop computer on November 28 2005 at around 11pm, Mr Crute told the court.

Mr Langham, 58, is accused of 10 counts of indecent assault and two of buggery between January 1996 and April 2000. He also faces 15 charges of downloading child pornography from the internet. He denies all the allegations.

The court has heard that his alleged victim, who is now 25 years old, claims Mr Langham took her virginity in a London hotel room when she was 14.

The pair met while Mr Langham was performing in Les Misйrables in London’s west end in the role of Thйnardier. The prosecution alleges he began a three-year campaign of “systematic abuse” by planting a kiss on her lips during an acting lesson in his dressing room.

Mr Langham’s laptop was recovered, along with a desktop computer and an external disk drive, at his home in Golford, near Cranbrook, Kent.

Before jurors heard about the files, Judge Philip Statman warned them: “It is vital that when you look at that which you are about to see, which you will find graphic, you take a cool, calm and dispassionate view of this evidence.”

His alleged victim earlier told the jury Mr Langham claimed that looking at child pornography on the internet made him feel he was “a better man” than the adults who appeared in it.

His defence counsel, David Whitehouse QC, said his client had downloaded the images for research purposes while writing the BBC drama Help.

In one of the episodes Mr Langham wrote, his character, a psychiatrist, interviewed a paedophile.

The comedy star Paul Whitehouse, who appeared with Mr Langham in Help, is expected to give evidence later today. He played several patients being treated by Mr Langham’s character.

The hearing continues.

The S&P 1500 Health Care Equipment subindustry index has seen improving momentum since it was featured in a (BusinessWeek.com, 1/16/07). . This group’s trailing 12-month price performance is now in the top 30% of all subindustry indexes in the S&P 1500. Year to date through Feb. 14, the S&P Health Care Equipment index slipped 0.5% vs. an 8% decline for the S&P 1500. During 2007, this subindustry index gained 10.4% to the broader market’s climb of 3.6%.

Take a look at the accompanying chart. As a reminder, the jagged blue line represents the subindustry index’s rolling 52-week price performance as compared with the 52-week performance for the S&P 1500. Any point above 100 indicates market outperformance over the prior year, while points below 100 indicate market underperformance. The red line is a rolling 39-week moving average, while the two green bands indicate one standard deviation above and below the index’s 17-year mean relative strength.

There are 21 large- and small-cap companies in the S&P 1500 Health Care Equipment subindustry index covered by S&P equity analysts. The market-cap weighted STARS for the group is 3.5, vs. 3.8 for the S&P 1500. Two companies have 5 STARS (strong buy) rankings: Becton, Dickinson («www.businessweek.com») and Hologic («www.businessweek.com»), while five have 4 STARS (buy) rankings: Hospira («www.businessweek.com»), Kinetic Concepts («www.businessweek.com»), St. Jude Medical («www.businessweek.com»), Stryker («www.businessweek.com»), and Zimmer Holdings («www.businessweek.com»). More Mergers Ahead

Robert Gold, who follows health-care equipment stocks for S&P, has a positive fundamental outlook for the group. He believes that early signs of a modest recovery in the implantable defibrillator markets, combined with ongoing strength in the cardiology, diabetes, pain management, and orthopedics markets, will help drive accelerating sales and earnings growth during 2008. While Gold remains concerned about a lack of blockbuster new product introductions, and thinks recent mergers and acquisitions activity in the U.S. hospital markets could interrupt big-ticket capital equipment spending in coming quarters, he believes several important products may be launched during 2008 and 2009.

In addition, S&P thinks the environment for mergers and acquisitions will remain active, which should support stock valuations and create more powerful global competitors in categories such as orthopedics, vision care, interventional cardiology, and oncology.

Gold estimates 2008 revenues will rise about 12% for the subindustry as a whole, as improved pricing in orthopedics products joins with slowing growth in the interventional cardiology category, particularly regarding drug-eluting coronary stents which have, in S&P’s view, saturated the market in the U.S. He continues to anticipate a modest rebound in the implantable defibrillator markets, and thinks growth will persist in the spinal surgery, pain management, robotic surgery, diagnostic imaging, and diabetes management product areas. Positive Longer-Term Fundamentals

The analyst also looks for strong gains in the cosmetic surgery categories, with particular strength projected in facial aesthetics and breast augmentation, although a weaker-than-expected level of consumer confidence in the U.S. could hurt demand in the plastic surgery areas.

In orthopedics, Gold expects protracted strength in the knee joint replacement market this year, reflecting favorable global demographics and technological innovation. He sees spinal repair, including artificial disks, as another strong industry area. In S&P’s opinion, the settlement of an investigation by the Justice Dept. into orthopedic device pricing has removed some risk for these stocks, and Gold does not see any material impact on either pricing or market share trends.

TO PASSERS-BY, it was an ordinary shopfront in an unremarkable part of Glasgow. Aside from a lucrative niche turning out menus for Asian takeaways, Print Link did little to draw attention to itself.

But now the premises have emerged as the base of one of the most sophisticated counterfeiting operations ever seen in Britain, producing fake banknotes that were found across the country. The operation was so big that the High Court heard the forgers had the ability to destabilise the British economy as part of a network linked with criminals across the UK.

The operation was described by police as “big as it comes”. They said the expertise exhibited was “very sophisticated”.

Fake Bank of Scotland 20 notes with a value in excess of 1.2 million and 50 notes with a total value of more than 400,000 were either put into circulation or were about to be distributed.

Police believe the criminals targeted events including football matches as a cover to launder cash.

The gang developed a system which had the potential to produce 1 million in forgeries every two to three hours.

The raid on the premises in St George’s Road, Maryhill, in January, uncovered what police said was like a “scene from a film”, with blank sheets of paper at one end of the press, the printing plates ready to go and test sheets already produced.

Other raids across the city resulted in the recovery of thousands of pounds of counterfeit euros. There were also fake drivers’ licences, passports and other documents.

Yesterday, the gang’s mastermind - a man who police said was one of only two capable of executing such a plot - was jailed for more than six years.

Ironically, Thomas “Hologram Tam” McAnea - who began his career printing menus and tickets - and his cohorts were in part caught because of their reputations as brilliant forgers.

One of those close to the investigation described McAnea as a perfectionist who had a “touch of the geek about him”.

In sentencing McAnea and his accomplices, Lord Bracadale told the High Court in Edinburgh that paper money was a vital part of the economy of this and other countries.

“Every day, ordinary people use banknotes to make purchases or engage in financial transactions. It is essential people can have general confidence in a currency, and be confident that banknotes they receive and use to pay for things are genuine,” he said.

“The issue of counterfeit notes not only undermines the economy of a country but is likely to result in loss being sustained by innocent people who find themselves in possession of these notes, only to discover they are worthless.

“It is clear Print Link was a centre for the production and distribution of counterfeit Bank of Scotland 20 notes, and facilitated the distribution of counterfeit 50 notes, all on a large scale, in an organised manner with different people having different functions.

“The evidence points to this being part of a sophisticated operation at the top end of the scale of production and distribution. Involvement in such activities must result in a sentence of imprisonment.”

Five other men involved in the operation centred on Print Link were also jailed yesterday, for between 15 months and four years. A seventh member of the group, Maria Campbell, 39, escaped a jail term and was ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service.

The court had heard McAnea, 57, of Yoker, Glasgow, was an intelligent man who had been unable to deal with the deaths of two of his children and had taken to drink. Another of his children was a doctor.

“Sadly, you have wasted your talents and abilities,” Lord Bracadale said, adding that McAnea would have received an eight-year jail term, but would get less because he had pleaded guilty.

The case brought to an end a four-month investigation, which was triggered when a bag containing 3 million of unfinished banknotes was found in London.

With operations moving north of the Border in the belief that gangs were paying somebody in Scotland to produce the notes, it was not long before McAnea, a larger-than-life character with a passion for Celtic FC and drink, and already well known for his abilities as a forger, came into the picture.

Graeme Pearson, director-general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, who had led Operation Fender to bust the racket, described McAnea as a “clever man”. He said he had “brought an art” and a “degree of quality” to the counterfeits that had impressed banking officials in the case.

“I think he was one of the more experienced and skilled people in terms of this printing. Had he not been, then I don’t think London-based criminals would have accessed him,” he said.

Mr Pearson said that the fact the fake Bank of Scotland notes were of such high quality had helped to finger McAnea as a likely suspect: “In terms of clues, he wasn’t a bad clue. If you’ve got Bank of Scotland notes coming up in London and a link somewhere in Scotland, he’s obviously going to be in the top ten of names you’re going to put together. In fact, you might not have ten on the top ten.

“I’ve no doubt that there’s a touch of the geek about him, that he takes that expertise to the next level and that he sees the challenge of producing banknotes as being a ’sell’ in itself.”

As far back as 1996, McAnea had been deeply involved in perfecting fake banknotes, which were used to swamp the European football championships in England.

The scheme was nipped in the bud by the police. McAnea was freed as inquiries continued, and promptly set up again at other premises, concentrating on foreign currency. Again, detectives smashed the scam before it got into full swing, and McAnea was given a ten-year prison term.

However, he won an appeal, because of an error by the judge at his trial, the now retired Lord Cameron, and, ironically, because of a printing error on police search warrants, which had read “1981″ instead “1989″.

Such was McAnea’s sense of humour that when officers raided the shop, a picture of Lord Cameron was pinned on the wall with the words “He’s the mann” scrawled underneath.

Despite his apparent cavalier attitude to the law, the forger did not flaunt his success and police are still investigating the whereabouts of the cash he was paid to carry out the work.

Indeed, while the case may be closed, police said a number of criminals had been spotted entering the premises during the surveillance operation and they would “continue to be of interest to us”.

Mr Pearson said that identifying the source of the forgeries had been relatively easy, even though the operation was in its early stages.

The four months required to complete the operation had been used to track down the safe houses and distribution network developed by the gang, all of whom were “hit” on the same night.

Mr Pearson said the victims of counterfeiting rackets were the public: “It does have victims. I think, generally speaking, people think it’s a bit of a wheeze and it’s a bit like a B-picture, one of the old black-and-white films with folk churning out pound notes in the kitchen and everything is hunky dory.

“In actual fact, what we have here are people who are doing it to enable criminal gangs to make profit and that profit is on our backs because we have to earn the cash to replace it.” THE HIDDEN COST OF THE FAKERS

COUNTERFEIT operations can pose a threat to the wider economy in three ways. If produced in substantial quantities, fake notes can reduce the value of real money and force an increase in prices - inflation.

They can lead to a loss of trust in paper money. People become suspicious of all note denominations and insist on payment in gold, payment in kind, or some substitute.

Lord Bracadale warned yesterday: “It is essential people can have general confidence in a currency and, in particular, confidence the banknotes they receive and use to pay for things are genuine.”

Counterfeiting can also prove lethal for business. Firms are not reimbursed for counterfeits. So the cost of such loss, and the security precautions to tackle counterfeiting, are passed on to customers.