'Coronation Street’ star Le Vell awaits jury verdict in rape trial
The eight women and four male jurors were sent out to consider their verdicts after being told by Judge Michael Henshell that their assessment of the alleged victim was “critical in this case”.
Le Vell, 48, who has played garage mechanic Kevin Webster in the soap for 30 years, is accused of sexually assaulting and raping the youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The actor, a father of two, sat listening to final legal submissions as his family members watched from the public gallery beside press benches packed with reporters at Manchester Crown Court.
An upstairs public gallery was also filled with members of the public awaiting the outcome of the week-long trial.
Le Vell, being tried under his real name of Michael Turner, denies five counts of rape, three of indecent assault, two counts of sexual activity with a child, and two of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
The jury will return this morning to resume its deliberations.
Earlier Eleanor Laws QC, prosecuting, told the jury the “courage” of the alleged sex abuse victim must be marked by guilty verdicts if she was telling the truth.
His accuser had no reason to lie and the only explanation for her allegations was that it was the “uncomfortable truth”, Ms Laws said.
“You saw her as bubbly, lovely, naive, so lovely,” she said. “She was not twisted.”
Ms Laws told the jury: “You are the most important people in the courtroom.
“It is you who decide the facts. At the end of the day it is your collective decision that is important.”
She said they may have “strong feelings” about these type of allegations.
“For example, before we started this trial, some of you may have thought there seems to be a lot of prosecutions of celebrities,” she said. “’Is there some kind of witch-hunt? Has the world gone mad?’ No one likes to think that someone they liked or admired has done anything like this.”
She said they may also think that it was “such an easy allegation to make” but “difficult to defend”.
But crimes like this did take place and could go undetected for years, she said.
Ms Laws continued: “Look very carefully at [the alleged victim’s] evidence and cast your mind to this time last week when you were looking at her and listening to her evidence.
“What was your reaction? That is what counts. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Alisdair Williamson then gave the closing speech for the defence, telling jurors the girl’s claims were “inconsistent, incoherent and unbelievable”.
He began by saying it was a “strange case of child rape” without any evidence of blood or semen or injuries to the alleged victim.
“Welcome to the prosecution’s hall of mirrors,” he told the jury. “Where up is down and left is right.
“You are going to throw a man’s life away? You are going to cast him to the outer darkness of being a child rapist?” Mr Williamson continued.
“Where is the consistency, the solidity of evidence on which you are going to be sure? Not there, simply not there.”
Mr Williamson said the defendant was a “drunk, bad husband and inadequate father” whose behaviour was sometimes “terrible”, but he is not a child rapist.
Mr Williamson then asked the jury to consider Le Vell’s own evidence from the witness box during a “ferocious cross-examination” by prosecutor Ms Laws QC.
“Did you think he was acting or was his evidence the scared and frightened evidence of a man who faces the most unbelievable and terrible thing ever to happen to a man — a girl saying he raped her?
“He’s a man, a weak man, a stupid man, a drunk man, but nothing in this case has taken you anywhere near, I suggest, the level of certainty you would need so you can look in the mirror in the days that come and say ’I was sure’.”
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