Langham guilty of child porn charge

The 58-year-old star claimed he was researching a paedophile character for a television drama and said he was trying to make sense of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, but a jury at Maidstone Crown Court rejected his account. Judge Philip Statman said he had viewed such serious indecent images of children that the custody threshold had been "well and truly passed".

The father of five - whose three sons from his first marriage were in court - was acquitted of indecently assaulting an underage girl who claimed he took her virginity in a London hotel when she was 14.

Langham did not visibly react when the verdicts were returned but nodded to his sons and blew them a kiss as he was led away by the dock officer after the judge remanded him in custody until sentencing.

Police raided his home in November 2005 as part of Operation Ore and seized three computers. On them were videoclips entitled "Kiddy 11-year-old", "13-year-old preteen underage" and "preteen sex education". Other files were called "Lolita", "incest", "rape", "whore" and "hussy".

Langham, who won a Bafta for his role in the BBC drama The Thick Of It, admitted looking at child porn but said he had pleaded not guilty because he wanted to make a public declaration that he was not a paedophile. His defence was that he was conducting research for the BBC television series Help which he was writing with The Fast Show actor Paul Whitehouse.

Langham said they had developed a paedophile character called Pedro whose catchphrase was "I'm only a minor offender" and wanted to explore the way society viewed sex offenders through him. The "Tainted Love" episodes were never made and Langham said Mr Whitehouse had nothing to do with the research.

During his time in the witness box, Langham told the four woman seven man jury (11) he also looked at indecent images of children because it helped him to come to terms with his own sexual abuse.

Langham, of Golford, near Cranbrook, Kent, was convicted of 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child between September and November 2005 after a three-week trial. He was cleared of six counts of indecent assault and two counts of buggery between January 1996 and April 2000. Langham had always denied all the charges.

The judge adjourned sentencing until September 14, saying a pre-sentence report would help him assess the danger Langham posed to children. He ordered Langham to sign the sex offenders' register.