AWARD-winning comedy actor Chris Langham sexually groomed and “systematically abused” a 14-year-old girl after she repeatedly watched him perform in a West End show, a court heard.

While corrupting the teenager, the married father-of-two took her to expensive restaurants and hotels and eventually had full sexual intercourse with her, it was alleged.

Maidstone Crown Court was told that the recovering alcoholic, who won a BAFTA for his roles in the BBC comedies The Thick of It and Help, had an interest in young girls.

Richard Barraclough, QC, prosecuting, said Langham had asked the girl to shave her pubic hair and when police raided his home in Golford, near Cranbrook, in 2005 they found child porn on his computers.

Langham, 58, claimed he downloaded the material from the internet as part of research for the Help series.

Mr Barraclough said the actor was aged 47 when he met the girl and her mother in 1996. They went to see him in the role of Thenardier in the hit musical Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre more than 50 times.

They became friendly and the teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, asked Langham to help her learn some Shakespeare.

“She was a very vulnerable girl,” the QC told the jury of eight men and four women. “She developed the eating disorder anorexia and as time went on Mr Langham took advantage of this vulnerability.”

During an acting lesson in his dressing room, he kissed her on the lips under the guise of teaching her the correct way to breathe.

The girl began visiting Langham on her own and their relationship became more intense. He took her to art galleries and a top restaurant in London.

Mr Barraclough said the girl was still only 14 when Langham had intercourse with her for the first time.

He took her to a hotel in Kensington and committed indecent acts with her before having full sex. He asked her to bite his nipples.

Langham denies 10 charges of indecent assault between January 8 1996 and April 7 1998, two other serious sexual offences and 15 of making indecent photographs of a child in 2005.

The trial continues on Monday.