Actor Langham accused of abusing girl, 14

LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) Award winning comedy actor Chris Langham groomed and ''systematically abused'' a 14-year-old girl after she repeatedly watched him perform in a West End show, a court was told.

The married father-of-two took the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to expensive restaurants and hotels and eventually had sex with her, the jury at Maidstone Crown Court in Kent was told yesterday.

Langham, 58, who won a BAFTA for his role in the BBC comedy ''The Thick Of It'', denies 10 charges of indecent assault between January 1996 and April 1998 and two other serious sexual offences.

He also denies 15 charges of making indecent photographs of a child in 2005.

Prosecutor Richard Barraclough, said Langham, a recovering alcoholic, had become friends with the girl and her mother after they went to see him in the hit musical Les Miserables more than 50 times.

The teenager asked Langham to help her learn some Shakespeare.

''She was a very vulnerable girl,'' Barraclough said. ''She developed the eating disorder anorexia and as time went on Mr Langham took advantage of this vulnerability.'' During an acting lesson in his dressing room, he kissed her on the lips under the guise of teaching her the correct way to breathe, the court heard.

The girl began visiting Langham on her own and he took her to art galleries and The Ivy restaurant in London.

She was 14 when Langham had sex with her for the first time at a hotel, Barraclough said.

When police raided his home in Kent in 2005 they found child pornography on his computers, the court was told.

The actor said he had downloaded the material from the internet as part of research for the comedy series ''Help'' where he played a psychiatrist.

The trial continues on Monday.

REUTERS SW PM0917