Coronation Street actor Michael Le Vall, who plays longtime character Kevin Webster, has been charged with 19 sex offenses, including rape, indecent assault and sexual activity with a child.

Le Vall, whose real name is Michael Turner, was asked to attend Pendleton police station yesterday evening by Manchester detectives investigating claims of abuse over a nine-year period, and is set to appear in court in two weeks time. The charges came about after a review of evidence, relating to offences against a child between 2001 and 2010, for which Le Vall had previously been arrested in 2011. At that time, he strenuously denied the allegations and proclaimed his innocence, and the investigation and charges were dropped three months later, but it emerged that in the wake of this that the father of two had split from his wife Janette Beverley.

This file of evidence has since been reviewed by lawyers for the Crown Prosecution Services, with principal legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Levitt releasing the following statement.

'I have very carefully reviewed the evidence in this case and I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge Michael Robert Turner with a number of sexual offences.

I have authorised Greater Manchester Police to charge Turner with 19 offences, including rape of a child.

Turner has now been charged with criminal offences and has a right to a fair trial.

As proceedings are now active, it would be inappropriate to say anything further at this stage.'

Le Vall has been released on bail and is due before the courts on February 27th. Le Vall first joined Coronation Street in the role of Kevin Webster in 1983, and has featured heavily for the past thirty years. ITV say he will not be appearing in any further episodes pending the outcome of legal proceedings.