Tele trial testimony

Why Coronation Street star William Roache was dubbed a ‘‘cockroach with a capital C’’.

WILLIAM ROACHE, the longest serving actor in Coronation Street, was dubbed ‘‘a cockroach with a capital C’’ by a fellow actor, a court was told.

Two young sisters were advised that Roache would ‘‘lead you astray’’ before the elder girl, aged 14, was groped in a room near the set of the Rovers Return, Preston Crown Court was told yesterday.

On another occasion the actor, now 81, forced the younger sister to perform a sex act on him in his Rolls-Royce. He gave her half a crown to get home and drove away, it was claimed.

The sisters were outside Granada Studios waiting for autographs during their summer holidays when Peter Adamson, the actor who played Len Fairclough in the TV series until 1983, issued the warning.

‘‘When he said it, he looked directly at him and he looked at us and said, ‘You want to keep your eye on him – he will lead you astray,’ and he called him ‘cockroach with a capital C’,’’ the elder sister told the jury.

Roache, who has played Ken Barlow in the soap since it was first aired in 1960, denies two counts of rape and five of indecent assault against girls aged 16 and under during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The witness, under cross-examination, told the court: ‘‘I’m really hardly surprised that these people are not coming forward. If I had known what I was going to go through, I would not have come forward.

‘‘I feel as if I am on trial here. I have done nothing wrong here, it’s Mr Barlow, Ken Barlow, that’s done it. I have done nothing apart from try to tell the truth.

‘‘All right, I have got mixed up with a few dates, but the issue is what he did to me. I’m sorry but that’s the way I feel at the mo- ment, as a victim. I’m so sorry I ever came forward.’’

The witness agreed that at first she had told police that the ‘‘cockroach’’ remark had been made by Johnny Briggs, the actor who

‘When he [Peter Adamson, left] said it, he looked directly at him and he looked at us and said: ‘‘You want to keep your eye on him [William Roache, right] – he will lead you astray’’, and he called him ‘‘cockroach with a capital C’’.’ Alleged victim

played Mike Baldwin in the series until 2006, but said she later corrected herself when she realised it was Adamson. He died in 2002.

As the cross-examination end- ed, Louise Blackwell, QC, told her: ‘‘You have not been telling the truth at all.’’ She replied: ‘‘I have not come here to be called a liar and put myself through all these months of hell.

‘‘You can say what you want – I know it’s true. He knows it’s true. When I watched him on Coronation Street, me and my sister were star-struck. What we did not know, he had another name, that’s Bill Roache – that was not a nice man. He assaulted me, whether he likes it or not, and I have had to carry it around with me. Why the hell would I put myself through all of this?’’ she said.

Her sister, younger by two years, told the court that she and a friend were offered a lift home by Roache, then in his 30s. She said he took her hand and made her perform a sex act on him before giving them half a crown to get a bus instead and driving away.

She also said that during the other incident, when she and her sister were invited on set, she was made to touch another actor, Neville Buswell, who played Ray Langton until 1978.

He has denied the allegation. The trial continues.