Actor William Roache has arrived at Preston Crown Court in the UK at the start of his trial for sexual offences against five girls.

The soap star (81) was arrested at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in May 2013 and later charged with two counts of raping a girl (15) in east Lancashire in 1967.

A month later he was additionally charged with five indecent assaults involving four girls aged between 12 and 16, allegedly committed in the Manchester area between 1965 and 1968.

Roache has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts he faces.

The world's longest-serving soap actor, who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV1 show Coronation Street, has not appeared in the programme while the legal proceedings are ongoing.

The trial is expected to last up to four weeks.