Woman tells court of surprise at Langham kiss
A woman told a court today how as a 14-year-old she had been stunned when the actor Chris Langham gave her a “soft kiss” during an acting lesson, saying it would help her “relate to the character”.
The award-winning comedy actor denies 10 counts of indecent assault and two counts of buggery between January 1996 and April 2000.
His alleged victim, now 25, told Maidstone crown court today that she had not expected him to kiss her as he helped her to practice breathing techniques and to play a character from Shakespeare.
The prosecution has alleged that the 58-year-old star of television’s The Thick Of It systematically groomed and repeatedly abused her as a teenager.
He befriended the then girl, who wanted to be an actor, as she waited for autographs at the stage door of the Palace Theatre in London where he was appearing in Les Miserables, a show she had been to see as a birthday treat, the jury has heard.
Mr Langham took her for expensive meals and gave her acting lessons before repeatedly assaulting her over a four-year period, the prosecution allege.
Today she told the court that he had kissed her when she had gone to his dressing room at the theatre after he had bought her a copy of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. She said the kiss came as they were practising breathing techniques, and lasted 20 or 30 seconds.
Richard Barraclough QC, prosecuting, asked the alleged victim if Mr Langham had explained why he had kissed her.
She said: “He said it was so I could relate to the character and it would help me with Shakespeare, because I wasn’t from a close family so I didn’t understand the meaning of affection and love to the extent I could have done … he thought if I did that it would at least teach me what affection or love was. That’s what he said.”
Mr Langham had picked out the role of Portia for her and made notes in the margins of the play he had bought for her, the court heard. She said: “He was talking about the diaphragm and how you breathe … he lifted up his top so I could see how his stomach would expand and slowly go down.
“I tried to do the breathing techniques as well but I felt a bit silly and then I sat down in the chair which was near the door, I can’t tell you the time it happened, and then he came up and he gave me a small kiss on the lips.”
Mr Barraclough asked her how she reacted.
“I sat there stunned. I wasn’t expecting that,” she replied.
The defence says that Mr Langham did take the girl to expensive hotels and restaurants, but they did not have a sexual encounter until she was 18. Last week David Whitehouse QC, defending, told the court that the actor had merely been trying to help the girl with her problems.
Mr Langham, of Golford, near Cranbrook in Kent, also denies 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child between September and November 2005.
The defence says the material had been downloaded on four specific dates when Mr Langham was writing a television drama involving a paedophile. The crown says this is a “spurious explanation” and that the accused has an “interest in young girls”.
The trial continues.
