London’s Burning actor John Alford is accused of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and two further counts relating to the 15-year-old of sexual assault and assault by penetration
A 15-year-old girl said she “felt absolutely sick” and had a breakdown after former London’s Burning actor John Alford sexually assaulted her, a court has heard. The 53-year-old is accused of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and two further counts relating to the 15-year-old of sexual assault and assault by penetration on April 9 2022.
Prosecutors allege the defendant, who is charged under his real name, John Shannon, sexually assaulted both girls while they were drunk after visiting a friend’s home following a night out at the pub. All of the offences are alleged to have taken place at the home of a third girl, who was friends with the alleged victims.
On Wednesday, jurors in his trial at St Albans Crown Court were shown footage of the 15-year-old girl’s police interview, which was conducted three days after the alleged incidents took place.
The court previously heard that former Grange Hill actor Alford briefly left the property and went to a nearby petrol station, coming back with a bottle of vodka, cigarettes and food.
The girl said the defendant had bought the alcohol for them and they were unaware he was buying it. “When everyone started to get really drunk, (Alford) and (the other girl) kept on going in and out of the room,” she said.
It is alleged Alford had sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old girl in the garden of the home and in a downstairs toilet. Asked about her own alleged incident, which she said happened at about 8am, the 15-year-old girl said: “We were all just like dozing off. That was when John started to touch me.”
Asked how she felt after the assault, the girl said: “Sick. I felt absolutely sick. I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
She said she immediately showered after being dropped off at the other complainant’s house the following morning as she was “stressing out”, before both girls went into the bathroom together and “spoke about everything that happened”.
The court previously heard the girls did not say anything about the alleged assaults immediately after they happened as they had been drinking “a fair amount of vodka”.
The complainant said she decided to speak out about the incidents whilst visiting a different friend’s home on April 11. “I had a mental breakdown to my best mate’s mum in the garden, and she called my mum,” she said. “(I was) crying, screaming, very sad.”
Asked how Alford was behaving on the night in question, the girl said: “He came across really nice (and) friendly. There was nothing dodgy about him.
“He was just overly friendly, overly nice. He just wanted to be a kid.” The younger alleged victim, now aged 18, was tearful as she gave evidence in front of a busy public gallery on Wednesday.
She told jurors she and the second alleged victim were good friends and their friend, a third girl their age, had invited them to her house in Hertfordshire for the evening with both planning to stay the night.
The woman said the alleged incident in the garden with Alford lasted “no longer than 10 minutes”, while the second incident in the downstairs bathroom lasted five minutes.
Put to her by Houzla Rawat, defending Alford, that she was being “physically friendly” towards the defendant throughout the evening, the witness replied: “I disagree.”
The alleged victim also denied following Alford into the garden after he went out to have a cigarette. Asked by prosecutor Julie Whitby why she listened to what Alford was saying in the garden and toilet when she did not want to talk to him, the witness said: “Most children, if an adult is telling you to do something, you’ll do it … especially if you are drunk or impaired.”
In a statement provided to police, 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, the court previously heard.
Alford, of Holloway, north London, denies all the charges against him.
The trial continues.
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