Coronation Street star William Roache was "sticking to his script" when lying that he did not sexually abuse five young girls, a jury heard today.
Mr Roache, 81, who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap, is accused of using his fame and popularity to exploit "starstruck" youngsters nearly 50 years ago. He denies two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault involving five girls aged 16 and under between the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
His trial heard that the women, who did not know each other, apart from two sisters, claimed they had been assaulted while at Granada Studios in Manchester, in Mr Roache's car or at properties he owned
Prosecutor Anne Whyte QC highlighted in her closing speech at Preston Crown Court that five women had made sexual allegations against Mr Roache. "He is emphatic that it just did not happen. He is lying or literally all of them are," she said.
“Who, of all the witnesses, is most used to rehearsing what he has to say and sticking to his script?” asked MsWhyte. “Is it someone like (another alleged victim) or is it the actor William Roache, a man who has spent his entire life learning lines and delivering them for public consumption?”
According to Ms Whyte, Mr Roache’s fame is “highly relevant” in the case. “He had become a national, good-looking heart-throb in the 1960s,” she said. “His work and his status gave rise, literally, to his exposure to these young women or girls.”
She said that by 1965 his “instant stardom” and resulting “adulation” had probably “massaged his sexual ego”. “He was probably already reaping the rewards of his sexual irresistibility,” she told the jury.
“You are here to judge William Roache in the 1960s when he was a young man with looks, fame and appetite. “That gave him the motivation and the opportunity to behave improperly.”
“You may think that it was probably not difficult to persuade himself that he was so attractive he was not really doing something so wrong... we say he was sexually presumptious.”
She said his fame “put him out of reach” and, because of who he was, anyone whom he touched sexually without consent “would probably not have the guts to complain”.
“He was probably reinforced with the belief that he would not be reported,” said Ms Whyte. She said times had changed now and this explained the “decades of silence” from the women involved.
Press Association