Roache charge is third blow for soap
The 81-year-old actor, who has played Ken Barlow in the show since its launch, was held at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, yesterday. Last night, he was charged with two counts of raping a 15-year-old girl in Lancashire in 1967.
It is understood Roache, the world’s longest-serving soap actor, will not appear in the show while investigations continue.
Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for CPS North West, said: “We have carefully considered all the evidence gathered by Lancashire Police in relation to William Roache following allegations of rape.
“We have been reviewing evidence and providing early investigative advice to Lancashire Police since Mar 1. Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Roache to be charged with two offences of rape relating to a girl, aged 15, in 1967.”
Roache will appear at Preston Magistrates’ Court on May 14.
The long-running soap was already rocked after Michael Le Vell, who plays Kevin Webster, was ordered to stand trial on a string of child abuse charges.
In an unrelated case, former Coronation Street star Andre Lancel is also awaiting trial accused of sex assaults on a teenage boy.
In March, Roache issued an apology after he appeared to suggest sex abuse victims were being punished for past sins.
The actor was interviewed for a New Zealand news programme and said the public should not be judgmental but be “totally forgiving” of people who had committed child sex crimes.
He told the programme: “If you accept you are pure love, and if you know you are pure love and therefore live pure love, these things won’t happen to you.”
Asked to clarify whether that meant victims brought the abuse on themselves, he said: “No, not quite, but and yet I am, because everything that happens to us has been a result of what we have been in previous lives or whatever.”
He also called for anonymity for those accused of child sex offences because of the stigma they faced even if innocent.
Roache later issued a statement saying he was “sorry for any offence that has been caused as a result of my comments”.
His comments were condemned by abuse charities.
In a TV interview with Piers Morgan last year, Roache said he had slept with up to 1,000 women. He told of his regrets at regularly cheating on his first wife, Anna. The couple divorced in 1974. His second wife, Sara, died in 2009.
Roache collected an award from Guinness World Records in 2010 for his lengthy service on the soap, having joined in 1960.
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