Disgraced BBC star Chris Langham jailed for child sex offences dies from cancer aged 77

DISGRACED BBC star Chris Langham has died aged 77 from pancreatic cancer. Langham, whose successful career on stage and screen ended when he was jailed for child sex offences in 2006, passed away almost three months ago, it has been revealed. Disgraced comedy star Chris Langham has died aged 77 Credit: PA:Press Association Langham was winner of Best Comedy Performance for In The Thick Of It Credit: Getty Langham is survived by his theatre director second wife, Chrissie, who stood by him and supported him financially when his acting work dried up. He is also survived by their children, Emily and James, as well as older children from his first marriage to the actress Sue Jones-Davies. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! All are understood to have stood by him despite the scandal, as did his parents, with his children regularly visiting him. Langham starred in comedy sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News before making his name in The Thick Of It. Langham starred as Hugh Abbot, the minister for social affairs, in the first two series of The Thick Of It Not The Nine O’Clock News press shoot featuring Rowan Atkinson, Chris Langham, Mel Smith & Pamela Stephenson Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd He won a Best Comedy Performance Bafta for The Thick of It in 2006. But just days later Langham was charged and was later convicted on 15 counts of downloading indecent images of children. He was jailed for ten months in 2007, later reduced to six months. At his trial in 2007 he admitted he had downloaded the images but pleaded not guilty. Most read in The Sun Langham that he had no sexual interest in children and telling the court that he had accessed the images as research for a “peeping tom” character named Pedro for the next series of Help. He has since maintained this explanation, but admitted the decision had “completely f***ed up my own life”. “It wasn’t circumstances. I’m not blaming it on anything or anybody,” he said later. His death was revealed by The Times today. Langham was born in 1949, the only child of Michael Langham and actress Helen Burns, He made his initial break after being picked as a joke writer for Spike Milligan and The Muppet Show. Langham had a cameo in Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979 alongside his first wife. He then went on to star in the comedy sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News in that same year. However, he was dropped after the first series due to excessive drinking and replaced by Griff Rhys Jones, a blow that triggered a spiral into drug and alcohol addiction. Langham checked into rehab and attending Alcoholics Anonymous, and then landed his defining role in the political satire The Thick Of It. He played bumbling Labour minister Hugh Abbot, a performance for which he was hailed as a genius. But just weeks after season two aired, Langham was arrested by Kent Police on November 29, 2005. He was accused of downloading child sex-abuse images, including “level five” material, the most extreme category. Langham was eventually charged with 15 counts of downloading indecent images, including clips that showed the rape of a teenager and the sexual abuse of an eight-year-old. Langham was released from Kent’s Elmley Prison in 2007 after serving three months but his acting career was effectively over. He made several attempts to work again, starring in two low-budget films that bombed as former friends, colleagues, and casting directors shunned him. Rejected by the showbiz world and out of work, Langham retreated from the public eye to his large family home in Cranbrook, Kent.