Posted August 2, 200717 yr Comedy actor Chris Langham has been found guilty of 15 counts of downloading child pornography but cleared of indecent assault. (Advertisement) He was remanded in custody for sentencing until September 14. The 58-year-old star claimed he downloaded child porn as research for a television drama he was writing. He said he also wanted to make sense of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, but a Maidstone Crown Court jury rejected his account. Langham, of Golford, near Cranbrook, Kent, was convicted of 15 charges of making an indecent photograph of a child between September and November 2005. But the jury cleared him of six counts of indecent assault and two counts of serious sexual assault between January 1996 and April 2000. Langham's solicitor, Angus McBride, read a statement on his behalf which said: "I'm absolutely delighted my name has been cleared of all the charges I have consistently denied. "I have been found guilty of charges I made admissions to from the moment of my first arrest. I'm grateful to the jury for their careful deliberation." The panel of four women and seven men returned their verdicts after deliberating for around two hours and 40 minutes. As the verdicts were returned he stood up with his eyes closed but did not react visibly. The judge told him that a pre-sentence report would help him assess the danger he posed. He said: "I will also be looking at punishment and deterrence. In my judgment, and I have thought long and hard about this, it would a misplaced kindness to give you bail at this stage." The judge also ordered Langham to sign the sex offenders register. Police raided Langham's home in November 2005 as part of Operation Ore and seized three computers containing child pornography. The actor admitted he had looked at child porn on the Internet but said he had pleaded not guilty because he was not a paedophile. His defence was that he was conducting research for the television series Help which he was writing with The Fast Show actor Paul Whitehouse. Mr Whitehouse had nothing to do with his research, he told the court. Langham confessed in his police statement that he viewed child porn for research purposes. But he also told the jury that he looked at indecent images of children because it helped him to come to terms with the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child.
August 2, 200717 yr The 58-year-old star claimed he downloaded child porn as research for a television drama he was writing. Whatever.
August 2, 200717 yr I don't really see what debate can come out of this thread though Tyron. No one is going to condone what he did or try and defend him and rightly so so it is inevitable that this will be a Langham bashing thread
August 2, 200717 yr I don't really see what debate can come out of this thread though Tyron. No one is going to condone what he did or try and defend him and rightly so so it is inevitable that this will be a Langham bashing thread Even so, a one-word reply hardly adds anything to the thread when all it is is based upon a nature to see the worst in everything :lol: Personally I believe that child porn isn't something that should really be used for research purposes, but it doesn't necessarily make everyone who looks at it a paedophile unless they're gaining sexual pleasure from it as the cynics seem to forget. We don't know if he did or didn't in this case, although I'm sure the cynic in most will slightly incline them more towards the latter.
August 2, 200717 yr Even so, a one-word reply hardly adds anything to the thread when all it is is based upon a nature to see the worst in everything :lol: Personally I believe that child porn isn't something that should really be used for research purposes, but it doesn't necessarily make everyone who looks at it a paedophile unless they're gaining sexual pleasure from it as the cynics seem to forget. We don't know if he did or didn't in this case, although I'm sure the cynic in most will slightly incline them more towards the latter. Wrong Tyron For whatever purpose it is used for be it "research" or sexual kicks it is the same monthly fee that is paid on the credit card and is going towards funding more child abuse and child sex slaves, Townsend and Langham both helped fund the industry
August 2, 200717 yr That's a very true point Vic. He should have known he'd be in major trouble even if it was just for 'research'. Im wondering why, if it was just for research, he couldn't have got all the information he needed from experts of some sort?
August 2, 200717 yr That's a very true point Vic. He should have known he'd be in major trouble even if it was just for 'research'. Im wondering why, if it was just for research, he couldn't have got all the information he needed from experts of some sort? Yeah exactly, if he wanted to research child abuse he could talk 1 to 1 to victims of sexual abuse, he could talk to child psychologists, he could do all sorts of things he had no need or business to be paying via credit card access to sites with images of kids being abused
August 2, 200717 yr Wrong Tyron For whatever purpose it is used for be it "research" or sexual kicks it is the same monthly fee that is paid on the credit card and is going towards funding more child abuse and child sex slaves, Townsend and Langham both helped fund the industry Hmm, that's quite a good point actually. I agree that he went about it the wrong way, but it doesn't necessarily make him a paedophile.
August 2, 200717 yr Hmm, that's quite a good point actually. I agree that he went about it the wrong way, but it doesn't necessarily make him a paedophile. Even if he wasn't or isn't one he has been incredibly stupid and as irresponsible as someone who would use it for sexual kicks so he has to be treated in the eyes of the law the same way as someone who would pay for money for sexual kicks so I would imagine he will be doing a few years jail time and that his career is over
August 2, 200717 yr That's the saddest thing about all this - had he wanted to do this reseach he could've gone another way about it, but because he did this his once promising career on TV is over.
August 2, 200717 yr Even if he wasn't or isn't one he has been incredibly stupid and as irresponsible as someone who would use it for sexual kicks so he has to be treated in the eyes of the law the same way as someone who would pay for money for sexual kicks so I would imagine he will be doing a few years jail time and that his career is over Indeed. What is the actual term (if it is a crime, which it should be) for funding paedophilia? And I think this raises a question of what actually happens when the paedophile is in jail - are they rehabilitated with the aim of finding the root of their paedophilia and combatting it or do they just stay in jail? IMO the former route would probably be the more sensible of the two...
August 2, 200717 yr After the prosecution of Pete Townsend, anyone in show business who messes around with these sites is at the very best a stupid idiot.........
August 3, 200717 yr What a sick f***, and then to cover it with lies such as that :rolleyes: The thing is though we don't KNOW if they're lies or not, but what he did was incredibly stupid ;)
August 3, 200717 yr Well I think they are lies from reading that story. You're right he is INDEED incredibly stupid.
August 3, 200717 yr Frankly, I find Langham's excuses to be incredibly weak, and he got off very lightly indeed... Okay, fair enough, he might have been conducting this "research" as he claims, but he's still contributing to the sick industry that abuses and tortures children, and that is the point here... He didn't need to do that, as Craig has said, he could have talked to victims or psychologists or even perpetrators trying to "go straight", and would have gotten all the information he needed put into some sort of context that merely staring at images would not have afforded... Thomas Harris didn't turn into a serial killer himself in order to research the "Hannibal Lector" books after all, did he....? Langham's an idiot, and lucky not to be in jail getting his head kicked in right now....
August 3, 200717 yr Author his 'TV research' defense was a blatant lie...... his credit card was used as far back as 1997 to access kiddie porn sites. The Paul Whitehouse show he mentions wasn't even written then! I believe it was written, and came onto our screens, in 2003 or 2004. Also, he said seeing the images reminded him of his own sexual abuse as a child. Strange that he viewed 7 year old girls and not 7 year old boys if this were the case, don't you think? I feel sorry for the girl he molested. Quite how he got away with it is beyond me - he was almost certainly guilty of this, as witnesses have stated.
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