Chris Langham’s police statement, in which he denied having sex with an underage girl, was full of lies and hypocrisy, a court was told yesterday.

The jury was told that the comedy actor had tried to blacken the character of the woman who accused him of taking her virginity at the age of 14.

Mr Langham is standing trial at Maidstone Crown Court on charges of indecent assault and downloading child pornography. Two of his sons gave evidence yesterday, and said that their father wanted them to meet the girl so that they could help her.

In his closing speech, Richard Barraclough, QC, for the prosecution, said that the actor had “an abnormal lust for sexual activity with young girls, a lust reflected in what the victim says he did to her”.

“The statement he made to police was nothing but hypocrisy and cant.

Each of his statements [defending his actions] is a lie. He downloaded these images. They didn’t happen automatically; he chose them. That makes him guilty in law. It doesn’t matter why he did it.” Mr Barraclough said that there were similarities between the allegations made by the woman and the images of child abuse found on Mr Langham’s computer.

Mr Barraclough dismissed the actor’s claim that he downloaded the pictures to look at the perpetrators, rather than the victims, because he was trying to come to terms with being sexually abused as a child. “You don’t look into the perpetrators’ eyes, as Mr Langham said. You look into the emotionless eyes of those abused and degraded girls. This entire case is an utterly miserable tragedy, particularly if he [Mr Langham] was abused as a child. But you must judge the case coldly and dispassionately on the evidence,” he said.

The actor also said that he looked at the images as part of research for a comedy programme, Help, that he was writing. David Whitehouse, QC, for the defence, said that Mr Langham had never recovered from being abused as a child and that the jury should not be prevented from accepting his reason for viewing child pornography – even though it is not recognised in law. He said: “If you think he was looking at images because he was himself a victim of abuse as a child then you are entitled to say that Parliament hasn’t given him a defence, but it should have done.” Mr Whitehouse described the victim as a “sad and unstable woman” and an attention-seeker.

Mr Langham, 58, denies 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child, six counts of indecent assault and two counts of buggery. Two of the actor’s three sons gave evidence yesterday. Of avisit to see his father in Glasgow, when the woman was also there, Siencyn Langham, 30, said: “I think I blanked occasions when she was there because I slightly resented other people being there, when it was supposed to be me, my brothers and my dad.”

Mr Langham’s middle son, Dafydd Jones-Davies, 24, said that his father had “recommended it would be beneficial for her to meet us, as we’d gone through difficult times and she was going through a difficult time. He thought it would be helpful.”

A juror has been dismsssed on administrative grounds. The trial continues.

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