World’s longest-serving soap star held in UK rape claim

British police on Wednesday arrested ‘Coronation Street’ star William Roache, the longest-serving star in the world’s longest-running soap opera, on suspicion of rape. Roache, 81, has played lothario Ken Barlow in the series portraying life in a fictional northern English town since its first episode on December 9, 1960. He was arrested at his home in northwest England over an allegation of raping an under-age girl between April and July 1967. ‘An 81-year-old man from Wilmslow in Cheshire has this morning, Wednesday May 1, 2013, been arrested by Lancashire Constabulary on suspicion of rape,’ a Lancashire Police spokesman said.