Chris Langham, the actor best known for his role in the BBC political satire The Thick of It, has died at the age of 77 following a private battle with pancreatic cancer, it emerged today.

Langham, whose once-prominent career in television, film and theatre collapsed after he was jailed for child sex offences in 2006, is understood to have died nearly three months ago.

His second wife, theatre director Chrissie Langham, remained by his side throughout his later years. He is survived by her and the couple’s two children.

Langham also had three older children from his first marriage to actress Sue Jones-Davies. They are understood to have continued supporting him in the aftermath of the scandal, as did his parents.

The actor and comedian was most widely recognised for playing the beleaguered government minister Hugh Abbott in The Thick of It, where his character was routinely humiliated by Peter Capaldi’s ferocious spin doctor Malcolm Tucker.

Langham was arrested days after winning the Bafta for Best Comedy Performance, the pinnacle of his career.

He always maintained he had downloaded child abuse images as research for a comedy series he was writing and was not a paedophile, a claim rejected by police.

He later said his own ‘arrogance’ and ‘ego’ had led him to view the abuse videos.

But the former star 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 later said.

His death was revealed by The Times today. 

Born on April 14, 1949, he died of pancreatic cancer on June 24 this year.

Langham, who started out writing jokes for The Muppet Show and Spike Milligan, starred in comedy sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News before making his name in The Thick Of It.

Just days after winning a Bafta in 2006 for his role in the political satire as bumbling Labour minister Hugh Abbot, Langham was in court accused of child sex offences.

He was 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. 

During his trial one juror was physically ill after viewing it. 

He was sentenced to ten months in jail.

Despite his release from Kent’s Elmley Prison after serving just three months in 2007, Langham’s acting career was effectively over.

He made several abortive attempts to work again, starring in two low-budget films, but they both bombed, and former friends and colleagues, including casting directors, shunned him. 

Rejected by the showbiz world and out of work, Langham went to ground, retreating from the public eye to his large family home in Cranbrook, Kent.

Langham told journalist Cole Moreton in The Independent on Sunday: ‘I have completely f***ed up my own life. It wasn’t circumstances. I’m not blaming it on anything or anybody.’

He claimed in his defence that he was looking at the content to help him understand his own past – and as research for a character in a psychotherapy comedy.

But Langham admitted: ‘That was foolish. And ultimately selfish. Arrogant.

‘I thought ‘I will do this difficult thing.’ But it had no respect for the children whose tragedies I was prepared to witness. 

‘It was just driven by ego. Because then you would like me, for taking this difficult subject and helping us all to see it differently [through comedy]. B*******.’

RELATED: King Charles Breaks Silence on US-Iran War Crisis

Before his fall from grace, he had managed to rebuild his career and family life after battling drink and drugs.

‘My career was being a drunk, and work was something I did if I had a spare five minutes,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph  in 2005. 

‘I was self-destructive. You don’t like yourself if you are an alcoholic and other people don’t like you either, because your behaviour is appalling. You are dishonest, disloyal, full of self-pity.’ 

This behaviour had cost him his first marriage. 

Just weeks before he died, it was revealed that he was making money in retirement from renting out a cottage in the grounds of his large home.

The spacious home in Kent, which sleeps up to six people, was available on Airbnb from £250 a night.

His theatre director second wife Chrissie stood by him and supported him financially when his acting work dried up. 

Langham’s working life was said to revolve around managing their property. 

He was a regular in his local gastropub.

A short drive away is a marina where he kept a boat which he took out on the English Channel.

One local told the Daily Mail in June: ‘He’s a lovely man, always smiling and very funny. I don’t know much about his past, only that he was an actor and was once very famous. Most of his time now is spent running the cottage. It’s very popular with a lot of guests and it’s busy all year round.’

Another resident said: ‘He’s a genuinely nice man. I think he’s paid the price for what he did. You can’t continue to punish someone for their mistakes. And given what went on, he’s probably better off being an Airbnb host than returning to showbiz.’

Indeed, even before the scandal that ended his career, Langham never found fame easy.

After being picked as a joke writer for Spike Milligan and The Muppet Show, Langham made his break on Not The Nine O’Clock News in 1979 – before he was dropped because of his excessive drinking.

He was replaced by Griff Rhys Jones for the second series, a blow which saw him spiral into a cycle of drug and alcohol addiction. 

After checking into rehab and attending Alcoholics Anonymous, Langham landed his leading role in The Thick Of It – for which he was hailed a ‘genius’.

But then everything came crashing down. Weeks after season two had aired, Langham was arrested by Kent Police on November 29, 2005, accused of downloading child sex-abuse images – including ‘level five’ material, the most extreme category.

Langham argued in court that he’d downloaded the graphic material as part of research for a role as a sex offender in the BBC series Help, which he wrote and starred in alongside Paul Whitehouse.

He also told the jury he wanted to watch images of child abuse because he’d been raped by a family friend as a youngster, and wanted to understand more fully what he’d gone through.

During the police investigation, allegations emerged that he had groomed and repeatedly abused a 14-year-old girl who’d come to see him in the musical Les Misérables a decade earlier – but he was acquitted of these charges.

The judge had insisted: ‘Paedophilia is not an issue in this case – you are not a sexual predator.’ 

But a senior policeman who had investigated Langham insisted to reporters outside court that he believed the actor was a paedophile.

Detective Superintendent Paul Fotheringham of Kent Police said: ‘Langham doesn’t like the label, but I am satisfied that he is a paedophile.’

A friend said before his death: ‘In a strange way, it brought the family together because all of them went through a terrible time. 

‘They are still very protective over Chris and have gone through a lot, but it’s made them very close and loving towards each other. It’s been a tough few years for Chris but he’s got a lot of peace of mind, and I think he now enjoys the quiet, country life and running his Airbnb.’

King Charles’s private concern that the United States-Iran conflict continues to grind on nearly seven months after it began has emerged following an apparent hot mic exchange.

The 77-year-old monarch was hosting members of the Pakistan cricket team at Clarence House when he spoke with Mohsin Naqvi, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman and Pakistan’s Interior Minister, who is also involved in talks between Washington and Tehran.

During the conversation, the King was heard telling Mr Naqvi: “It’s all going backwards.”

The remark surfaced as reports said Donald Trump has been privately consulting senior advisers over whether to state that the war with Iran has now come to an end.

Mr Naqvi, who has been working to help broker a peace deal involving the US, Israel and Iran, appeared to acknowledge the fragile pace of diplomacy, saying: “Yes, it is a story of one step forward and one step back.”

Charles told him the talks would clearly be challenging, adding: ‘We’re going to have to rely on you a great deal.’

Mr Naqvi appeared to say the US-Iran talks had been ‘one of the most difficult’ he had been involved in.

The conversation was picked up by a microphone from Pakistan’s most-watched TV news channel, Geo News.

Mr Naqvi later told the broadcaster that the King had acknowledged Pakistan’s work towards peace and security in the Middle East, calling his talks with Charles ‘very productive’.

Charles also met the Pakistan cricket team, who are currently 2-0 down to England in a three-match series. They presented the King with a signed bat.

The Wall Street Journal cited officials overnight who said that the US President now favours the idea of ending the conflict, now in its seventh month. 

Sources say Trump told his aides that he believes piling economic pressure on Tehran will eventually force the regime either to dismantle its nuclear programme or collapse.

Meanwhile, his advisors are warning Trump that an escalation of the Iran war beyond recent strikes could endanger Republican prospects in the November midterm elections. 

However the President said he isn’t taking electoral consequences into account when making decisions on the war. 

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump said that the US military would remain prepared to launch more strikes ‘any time we want,’ similarly to its offensive this week after Iran tried to lay new mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

‘We see everything that they’re doing,’ Trump said. ‘They can’t go to the bathroom without us seeing it.’

Writing on social media, Trump said: ‘I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing.’ 

‘They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?’ 

Previously, Trump had appeared to pivot towards trying to bend Iran to his will through economic sanctions. 

He warned that if Iran retaliated for the new strikes ‘they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level’.

Iran continued attacking US military bases in Kuwait on Thursday, however, despite Trump threatening further strikes in a fresh flare-up just over six months into the war. 

Security chief Mohsen Rezaei warned the US that Iran had adopted a ‘new strategy’ in the war that ‘will shatter your foundations’. 

After a respite of more than a month, fighting between the US and Iran has been increasing since the weekend. 

It comes after the US hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran retaliating by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan. All were intercepted.

Kuwait’s army said Thursday it was intercepting a missile and drone attack from Iran, with Iranian state TV confirming that Tehran was targeting US bases in the Gulf state ‘in response to America’s crimes against the Iranian people’. 

On Wednesday, Bahrain, which hosts an important US naval base, intercepted an Iranian aerial attack.

It said its air defense systems intercepted incoming fire from Iran, accusing the country of ‘attacks targeting civilians’ in a statement issued by its military.

The renewed violence threatens to fully reignite the conflict and has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and is posing increasing political problems.

On Wednesday, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed above $95, up more than 30 per cent from the start of the war.

But oil prices sank Thursday after the US president said the latest round of strikes could be over soon.

Asked how long the bombing campaign could last, he told reporters: ‘I don’t think too long.’ 

Ahead of the morning attacks on Bahrain on Wednesday, Iran fired missiles at Jordan and drones at Kuwait – all of which were intercepted. 

On Monday, the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted an incoming Iranian drone over its waters as well.

The US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday night that it had completed the latest barrage against Iranian military targets including air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets.

One US strike hit a home hosting a wedding, according to Iranian media. At least five people were killed, including a child, and at least 68 others were wounded, according to Iranian officials.

Meanwhile, two oil tankers hit sea mines and were disabled while attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.

In a statement, the Guards said the tankers had been forced to disembark their crews and were placed in the hands of US operatives to pass through what it called an ‘illegal route’ in the strategic waterway, despite earlier warnings from the Guards’ navy about the dangers of crossing the mined passage.

In a separate statement, the Iranian army said ‘dozens of the army’s attack drones… have targeted radar systems and the positions of US forces at the Al Dhafra and Al Minhad bases in the United Arab Emirates’.

It said it also targeted ‘radar installations and gathering points’ of US forces at Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Airbase.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards meanwhile said they targeted US forces in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

They added on Wednesday that four personnel were killed in a US attack on the western province of Kermanshah.

‘Four fighters of the IRGC Aerospace Force in Kermanshah province were martyred in an attack by the US regime,’ the Guards said in a statement carried by Fars news agency, using their acronym.

During last month’s lull in fighting, the US ramped up economic pressure on Iran, which is suffering from soaring inflation, negative growth and a collapsing currency, as Washington sought to win concessions to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping traffic.

About a fifth of the world’s traded oil was shipped through the key waterway before Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28 and Iran largely shut it down. 

Despite many pronouncements from Washington that the strait is open, only a handful of ships are making the passage each day and Iran has regularly attacked vessels.

Trump suggested on Wednesday renaming the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic shipping lane that Tehran has effectively shut for six months, as ‘Trump Strait’ – although he implied later that he wasn’t serious.

‘Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???’ the US president wrote on Truth Social.

In launching its latest attacks, US Central Command said it was responding to Tehran trying to hit commercial ships and American forces in the Middle East.

At the moment, the US military is maintaining a presence of 50,000 troops in the region.

Their current goals include intercepting Iranian missiles and providing cover for commercial ships in the strait while blockading Iranian ports and coastal areas.

They are also ready to launch bigger offensive attacks if Trump decides to escalate the war.