Roache ‘misheard verdicts’ and thought he was going to jail

The 81-year-old soap star told a national newspaper that it was not until the judge ordered for him to be released from the dock that he realised he had been acquitted.

Mr Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap, was found not guilty by a jury of two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault following a four-week trial at Preston Crown Court on Thursday.

In the interview published yesterday, he said: “I didn’t hear the verdict properly, I didn’t hear a couple of ‘nots’.

“I thought I had gone on two [charges] – I just heard guilty, guilty. I really thought they had got me.”

The Mail on Sunday reported that he made the comments at a meeting of the spiritualist group Circle of Love at their base in Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester.

He also strongly criticised Mr Justice Holroyde for siding with the prosecution case during the trial.

Louise Blackwell QC from his defence team attempted an 11th-hour, highly unusual legal bid to have the trial halted claiming the judge had been biased in his summing up of the case.

“In my view the judge wasn’t impartial. The judge was biased, he mauled me. I thought that was it,” the actor said.

“It’s not about truth, or about justice, it’s a game.”

The Coronation Street veteran was alleged by the Crown to have used his fame and popularity to exploit “starstruck” girls, aged 16 and under, between the mid-60s and early-70s.

Speaking on the steps of Preston Crown Court on Thursday, Mr Roache said there were “no winners” after he was cleared of the historic sex offences against five women.

He has said he expects to return to the soap in August and is due to meet Granada bosses next week.