Actor Chris Langham has described a woman who claims he took her virginity at 14 as "sick".

Langham, 58, who is also charged with downloading child porn, denied having a lust for young girls.

He claimed his alleged victim, who is now 25, jokingly told him that she wanted to kill his children and had violent fantasies about him punching her in the face.

Prosecutor Richard Barraclough QC suggested Langham was "prepared to torture her by making outrageous allegations against her".

Langham said: "She's a sick person, I've never made any allegations against her.

"I mean that in a completely compassionate way. It's not a criticism or judgment. I can't say I like her very much but everybody deserves compassion."

The jury at Maidstone Crown Court has heard how he gave the woman acting lessons in his dressing room when he was starring in Les Miserables in London's West End.

She claims she lost her virginity to him shortly afterwards in a London hotel.

The actor revealed that his arrest on child porn charges in November 2005 had troubled the woman.

He said: "She was very upset by the charges and she said she thought I was guilty. She wanted to know if my relationship with her was not affected by a sexual interest in children."

The actor said she was also worried that "I was looking at her in that way" and said: "I was able to say that I wasn't."

Mr Barraclough said: "Were you frightened that this girl was going to go to the police and complain about the sexual activity you'd had with her as a child?"

"No," Langham replied.

He was arrested ten months later for allegedly having underage sex with her. The actor said it was a "terrifying" experience.

He said he was on a family holiday in Cornwall at the time and returned to Kent to avoid being arrested in front of his children.

The actor has previously admitted there was sexual contact between them when she was 18 and that he regretted it.

When asked why he offered her free theatre tickets after this event, Langham told the jury: "The thing you have to remember is I have always been fond of her. She was a terribly frail person."

The prosecutor suggested he had been a father figure to her. Langham said: "I hope there was love and affection between us, there's nothing dishonourable about that."

When asked why he thought she had told her best friend and a doctor that she had sex with him, he replied: "I think I'm the only person who didn't do anything to her. I tried to behave in an honourable way with her."

He added: "But I have to say, this is a family that don't have relationships, they take hostages."

Mr Barraclough said the defence had suggested to the jury that the woman made the allegations against Langham because she was unable to cope with him rejecting her.

Langham replied: "I don't know what she's saying, I'm only here to speak my own truth."

Langham, of Golford, near Cranbrook in Kent, denies 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child between September and November 2005.

He also denies six counts of indecent assault and two serious sexual offences between January 1996 and April 2000. Four further counts of indecent assault were dropped after the Crown accepted there was no evidence to support them.