BRITAIN:The award-winning British comedy actor Chris Langham was in custody last night facing the prospect of a prison sentence after being found guilty of downloading videos and pictures of child abuse onto his home computers.
At the end of a three-week trial, the star of the BBC satire The Thick of It was cleared of six charges of indecent assault and two charges of buggery after the jury found him not guilty of having sex with a 14-year-old fan he had befriended outside a London theatre in the mid-1990s.
But he was convicted of 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child and will be sentenced in September.
Remanding the actor in custody Judge Philip Statman said the custody threshold had been "well and truly passed". "In my judgment, and I have thought long and hard about this, it would a misplaced kindness to give you bail at this stage."
The crown prosecution service said some of the videos and photographs found on Langham's computer contained images of sadism and non-consensual sex between adults and children.
Outside the court, in Maidstone, south of London, Det Insp Derek Cuff, of Kent police, said: "Viewing such images simply perpetuates child abuse. Our thoughts are with all victims of child abuse, which has such a devastating effect on young people's lives."
Ken Goss, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Chris Langham thought that he could possess, download and view indecent images of children. His defence was it was only research. That was clearly wrong."
During the trial, Langham repeatedly denied claims that he systematically groomed and then assaulted the girl when she was 14 and 15. He did admit having sex with her when she was 18.
The 58-year-old actor never denied downloading child abuse images but said he was pleading not guilty because he was not a paedophile. He told the court he was researching a sex offender character for the BBC comedy Help that he was writing with fellow comedian Paul Whitehouse.
The actor recounted having been abused as an eight-year-old child, and said he looked at the images to better understand what had happened to him.
He said he did not want to go into any detail, but he felt "deep, deep shame" about what had happened. Following his arrest, the court heard that Langham had attempted to commit suicide. He said: "I had a terrifying six months and I just wanted to die and I tried to kill myself. I just hated it." He described the experience of seeing the films as like "putting my face in a chainsaw".
Yesterday on the steps of the court his lawyer, Angus McBride, said Langham and his three older sons, who were in court, were "surviving".
He read a statement from Langham in which he thanked the jury and conceded that the child pornography charges were ones he had "made admissions to from the moment of my first arrest", despite his not guilty plea. He said there would be no further comment before the sentencing.
Yesterday, Insp Cuff said the police "will always deal vigorously with any offences involving sexual abuse or exploitation of children. We must not forget that child abuse images circulating on the internet are real situations involving real children who are sexually abused for other's gain and self-gratification."
The judge said a pre-sentence report would help him assess the danger Langham posed to children. "I will also be looking at punishment and deterrence," he added.