Shamed Coronation Street star, Michael Le Vell, has appeared in court for the first day of his hearing in connection with the 19 counts of child sex offences he has been formally charged with.

Le Vell, who has played mechanic Kevin Webster in the award-winning ITV soap for over 30 years, was originally arrested on one child sex allegation in 2011, but the case was dropped last year due to lack of evidence.

However, the prosecutor was not satisfied that the overturn was just and had since worked on the evidence until, earlier this year, she had enough to formally charge Le Vell with 19 counts of alleged child sex offences, including indecently assaulting a child and sexual activity with a child.

Michael Le Vell, real name Michael Turner, appeared at yesterday’s hearing which lasted only 8 minutes, wearing white shirt and black tie according to pictures published in today’s Sun newspaper, and only spoke to confirm his name, address and date of birth.
District Judge Khalid Qureshi, addressing le Vell’s solicitor, Richard Gowthorpe, asked if there was any indication of plea, to which he replied:

“No indication of plea today other than the fact that the charges are contested, and will be fully contested in the crown court.”

This lead the judge to then adjourn to Manchester Crown Court on March 20, with Le Vell being granted bail on the condition that he surrendered his passport, makes no attempt to contact any named witnesses and does not have unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 14.

Le Vell first joined the cast of the iconic soap back in 1983 as the mechanical apprentice of Brian Tilsley. Since then he became a firm favourite amongst fans, especially when his character settled down and married sweetheart, Sally played by Sally Dynevor, with whom he had two daughters, as well as a son later on with best friend, Tyrone Dobbs (Alana Halsall) wife, Molly.

The actor, who split with his real-life wife Janette Beverley last year, has been dropped from all filming commitments on the show until the trial is over.

Le Vell, who has always maintained his innocence, insisted: “I am innocent of these charges and intend to fight them vigorously.”

Watch a news report on Michael’s arrest in the clip below: