A Grange Hill and London’s Burning star carried out sex attacks on teenage girls aged 14 and 15 after going to buy a bottle of vodka and asking one of them to sit on his lap, a court has heard. John Alford, who played Robbie Wright in BBC children’s TV show Grange Hill from 1985 to 1990 and Billy Ray in the ITV series London’s Burning between 1993 and 1998, is accused of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old and two counts relating to a second girl, then aged 15, of sexual assault and assault by penetration.
The 53-year-old, who also had three Top 30 hits on the UK singles chart in 1996, is on trial at St Albans Crown Court. On Tuesday (August 26), prosecutors said Alford sexually assaulted both girls, who did not previously know him and were drunk, after a night-out at the pub.
The alleged offences all took place at a house where a party was being held. The jury heard alleged victims were left alone with Alford, who is charged under his real name John Shannon, after others at the property went to bed and he asked them how old they were.
“Mr Shannon was in no doubt that these two girls were both under 16,”prosecutor Julie Whitby said. Alford then briefly left the property and went to a nearby petrol station, and came back with a bottle of vodka.
He asked the 14-year-old girl to sit on his lap after going outside into the property’s garden for a cigarette, which the girl described as feeling “a bit strange”, the court heard. Alford then allegedly started to kiss and touch her before having sexual intercourse with her.
“She didn’t say stop beforehand, but she didn’t want it to happen,” Ms Whitby said. Later in the evening, Alford then had sex with the girl for a second time in a downstairs toilet in the property after pulling her onto him, jurors were told.
“He asked her ‘Do you want this babe?’ and she said no,” Ms Whitby said. It is also alleged that Alford then sexually assaulted a second 15-year-old girl.
Both girls did not say anything about the alleged assaults immediately after they happened as they had been drinking “a fair amount of vodka”, the prosecutor said. Police received a third-party report from the 15-year-old girl’s mother outlining the allegations, jurors were told.
The defendant was then arrested the following day after both girls were interviewed. In a statement provided to the force, Alford said one of the two girls “kept on trying to kiss me” and had told him she was 17-years-old. He added: “At no point did I touch her in any sexual way whatsoever.”
Alford said the two alleged victims were “trying to extort money from him and they were trying to trick him”, but no material supporting these claims was found on either the girls’ or the defendant’s phones when searched, Ms Whitby said.
The trial had been listed to start in December last year but the court was previously told Alford had been admitted to hospital and was medically unwell.
Alford, of Holloway, appeared in the dock wearing a white shirt and pair of headphones. He denies all the charges against him. The trial continues.
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