Anne Kirkbride, who plays Deirdre Barlow – the onscreen wife of Bill Roache in Coronation Street, is expected to give evidence in his trial today.
Other members of Roache’s on-screen family including Chris Gascoyne - his son Peter Barlow in the ITV show – are also expected to give evidence.
Roache, 81, denies two counts of raping a 15-year-old girl in east Lancashire in 1967, and four indecent assaults involving four girls aged between 11 or 12 and 16 in the Manchester area in 1965 and 1968.
On Monday he was cleared of one of the seven historic sex allegations against him when the judge ordered the jury to return a not guilty verdict on a single count of indecent assault.
Roache, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, has previously told Preston Crown Court he did not commit any of the offences.
Related Articles'Against my nature' to commit rape, Bill Roache trial hears
22 Jan 2014Bill Roache trial: Coronation street rival warned teen about the actor
17 Jan 2014Bill Roache: I can't recall ever meeting those making sex assault allegations against me
28 Jan 2014He told a jury that he did not remember meeting any of the people who made allegations against him, and denied that he was a man "willing to take sexual risks" during the 1960s.
Roache conceded having cheated on his wife Anna Cropper, but said he was "not interested in gratuitous sex ,and certainly not with under-age people".
He told the court: "I have no interest in people under age and I have no interest in imposing myself on people."
Roache was born in Ilkeston in Derbyshire and went to the nearby Rudolph Steiner School where his grandfather had donated part of his property for its grounds.
Talking about Mr Steiner, he said: "He had an interesting philosophy about education - that school should be a place of fun. Handcrafts, dancing, painting... there was no discipline; it was not needed either."
He then went to boarding school in North Wales before joining the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, suffering an accident which permanently damaged his hearing in the mid 1950s.
The trial continues.
Law and OrderNews »UK News »Crime »Claire Carter »In Law and Order
View the Original article
No comments:
Post a Comment