Chris Langham wept yesterday as he spoke in court for the first time about how he was abused as a child.

The actor, who is accused of downloading child pornography and sexually abusing an underage girl, told a jury at Maidstone Crown Court that he had downloaded films of sexual abuse so he could try to understand what had happened to him when he was molested on a sailing holiday in the 1950s.

The incident, which took place when he was aged 8, made him want to address the subject in Help, a BBC comedy series about a psychiatrist and his patients, but he had difficulty confronting it, the court heard.

“I can’t get to that stuff,” he said. “There’s an eight-year-old boy in there and I don’t know how to talk to him.”

His voice quivered as he recalled being raped by a man while on a sailing trip away from his parents on Lake Ontario in Canada, where he grew up.

“We stayed in a tent and this guy – I don’t remember his name – I remember he had red hair . . . The thing I can’t get out of my head is lying in bed with him with his arm around me and him telling me I had done well and me having two thoughts in my head. I had done well because he liked me. My second thought was a deep, deep shame that I would do that to be liked.

“A slut, for a kind word, is what I am. I have always despised myself for my approval-seeking.”

He admitted to police that he had downloaded child pornography but said that he had been sickened by what he saw. He compared watching the footage of children being abused to “putting your face in a chainsaw”. Describing the first time that he deliberately sat down to watch child pornography, he said: “My mouth went dry, my heart started beating, I felt sick, so I stopped immediately. I have no sexual interest in children. I have children. I was a child. The images were very upsetting to me. It was like putting your face in a chainsaw. You just had to get out.”

The actor said that he sat down to watch footage on four occasions. He admitted to being a regular visitor to adult pornography sites but said that he had never used his credit card to pay for images of child abuse.

“My own view of my sexuality is that I’m rather depressingly normal for a man of my age,” he said. He said that he regarded the films of child abuse shown in court as “atrocity videos” and could not understand how people could be titillated by child pornography.

He said that he first downloaded child pornography accidentally while looking for adult images in January 2005. “I opened it and looked at it. It wasn’t particularly vicious but it was a child. I was very shaken by it. I talked to my wife about it.”

The court was adjourned after he burst into tears and rocked in the witness box when recalling how his life fell apart in the months after his arrest in November 2005. “I had a terrifying six months. I just wanted to die. I tried to kill myself. I just hated it.”

After his arrest was made public he was accused by a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, of having sexually abused her when she was 14. Mr Langham admitted having sex with the woman once, when she was 18, at a hotel in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. He said that he regretted it almost immediately.

The actor said that on a previous occasion the woman had told him about wanting to harm his family. “She said several times that she had fantasies about harming my children. That is why she never came alone to the house.”

The court also heard that Mr Langham had a nervous breakdown and took drugs while at university. “It would have been mainly marijuana – hash – and LSD.”

The judge ordered the jury to find Mr Langham not guilty yesterday on four of the original ten indecent assault charges that he faced because of lack of evidence. He denies a further six charges of indecent assault, two of serious sexual assault, and fifteen relating to downloading child pornography. The trial continues.

In the witness box

''A slut, for a kind word, is what I am. I have always despised myself for my approval-seeking''

''I have no sexual interest in children. I have children. I was a child''

''We stayed in a tent and this guy, he had red hair . . . The thing I can’t get out of my head is lying in bed with him with his arm around me and him telling me I had done well. I felt a deep shame that I would do that to be liked''

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