The comedy actor Chris Langham downloaded images of people being maimed and killed because they made him feel “like a better man”, a court was told yesterday.

Mr Langham, who starred in the BBC television series The Thick of It, wanted to view images of suffering so that he could see the look in the torturers’ eyes, a jury at Maidstone Crown Court was told.

He allegedly confessed to storing the images on his computer in 2005 after his arrest on suspicion of downloading child pornography, according to a woman who claims to have been seduced by the actor when she was 14.

The woman, who is now 25 and cannot be named for legal reasons, said that Mr Langham admitted downloading illegal images when she rang him about press reports of his arrest. “He told me that it was true, what was in the papers, and that there was more to it than that,” she told the court.

“He said that the press focused on the child pornography because that was the worst of it, but he was looking at other images of people with their heads and body parts being chopped off as well. He said that he was not looking at the children, but at the people who were hurting them. He was looking into their eyes because it made him feel like a better man.”

She said that Mr Langham also admitted looking at images of young girls and young boys. “He was suicidal. He explained – he swore – that what had happened between us wasn’t because of our age.” The woman said that she was confused by his statement because of a comment he made about her age during their last sexual encounter, when she was an adult, at a hotel in Notting Hill, West London. “He said that I was still like a little girl to him,” she said. Asked what she thought he meant by that, she said: “I didn’t know what to think.”

The woman, who befriended Mr Langham after meeting him on her 14th birthday at the stage door of the Palace Theatre, had her last meeting with the actor outside the Ritz Hotel, the court heard. “He was wearing a cap to disguise his identity,” she said. “He said that I wasn’t a nice person and that if I was a real friend I would believe what he was telling me.”

She admitted, under cross-examina-tion from David Whitehouse, QC, for the defence, that she was known within her family as “the drama queen” because she cried frequently, but denied that she was always seeking attention. She also denied that she had tried twice to take her own life.

Mr Whitehouse said that Mr Langham’s motive for being her friend was to help her with an eating disorder. “He was trying to change your attitude about food. He took you to really nice restaurants where there would be delicious food . . . When you did eat well, he praised you,” he said.

She admitted that she was star-struck by Mr Langham, but denied being in love with him. “To be honest with you, he wasn’t that famous then. He’s not even that famous now.” Mr Whitehouse asked her whether her statement to the police claiming that she had sex with Mr Langham within a month of meeting him was accurate. She said she could not give an exact date. Mr Whitehouse said: “Could it be two months later, three months later? You are telling the jury that you had sex with Mr Langham [when you were 14]. This is a lie.” The woman responded: “No, it is not a lie.”

Mr Langham is charged with two counts of serious sexual assault, ten counts of indecent assault and fifteen charges relating to downloading child pornography. He denies all the charges.

The case continues.

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