Jury in Bill Roache trial retires to consider verdicts
The jury in the trial of Coronation Street actor William Roache has retired to consider its verdicts. Roache denies two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault.
Jury told case against Corrie star Roache is 'nonsense'
The case against Coronation Street's Bill Roache is a "nonsense" that relies on the notion that the actor turned from a "perfect gentleman" to a sexual predator and back again, his defence barrister has said.
Roache, 81, who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap, is accused of using his fame and popularity to exploit "starstruck" youngsters in the late 60s and early 70s.
Summing up at Preston Crown Court, Louise Blackwell QC said: "What the prosecution say is that for some weird reason between 1965 and 1972 ... Mr Roache departed from his usual character and behaviour and became a young woman-snatcher, a risk-taker, taking people into toilets.
"Then as soon as this madness is visited upon him, it passes. It's nonsense, it just doesn't happen in the real world."
Roache, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, denies two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault involving five complainants between the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
He told the jury at Preston Crown Court he has no knowledge of any of the women he is supposed to have assaulted.
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Coronation Street stars defend 'gentleman' Bill Roache
Coronation Street actor Bill Roache has been defended by some of his co-stars at his trial at Preston Crown Court.
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Bill Roache says he had 'no interest in gratuitous sex'
On his first day of evidence, actor Bill Roache denied all of the allegations against him insisting he had no interest in 'gratuitous sex'
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Alleged Roache victim: 'I blamed myself...I was a kid'
A woman has told the trial of Coronation Street's Bill Roache that the actor raped her on two occasions when she was 15 years old in 1967.