Coronation Street star Roache ‘never attracted to young girls’

And the actor who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap, said he was “absolutely staggered” and “horrified” by the claims he had sexually assaulted young girls in the 1960s, the jury at Preston Crown court heard.

Roache, 81, had to sit down and compose himself after police came to arrest him early one morning last May at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, the jury heard.

He told detectives: “I had plenty of very attractive, wonderful partners. I love women and I love making love to women but it has to be with their full co-operation and full enjoyment.

“Youngsters have no attraction to me at all. These allegations are not nice, not pleasant and I don’t know why they have come forward.”

His trial, now in its second week, heard about two police interviews after his arrest when he was quizzed by detectives at Leyland Police Station in Lancashire.

He denied all the allegations throughout the interviews in May and June last year, repeatedly saying: “It didn’t happen.”

Roache said women would indicate a desire to have a relationship with him and he said: “I do enjoy having sex with women.” But that was always with their full and unconditional consent, he stressed.

He said girls aged 11 to 16 “hold no interest of a sexual nature for me at all”. He was asked if he could give “any reason” why one specific victim would make her claims against him. Roache replied: “The climate of what’s happening at the moment, a lot of people are coming out accusing celebrities, for various reasons, and I don’t know what her motivation is.

“I can only surmise there’s some hope of selling articles to the newspaper, a moment of fame. I don’t know what the motivation would be and I’m absolutely horrified at the whole thing.”

Roache denies two counts of rape and five counts of indecent assault involving the five complainants who were aged 16 and under on dates between 1965 and 1971.

He was first arrested on the morning of May 1 last year, and held on suspicion of raping a 15-year-old girl at his former home in Lancashire in 1967.

Roache was later charged with two counts of rape and the publicity that followed led to four women coming forward to say he indecently assaulted them.

The trail was adjourned until today.