Coronation Street's Ken Morley admits he 'groped and grabbed' women in the Eighties

Celebrity Big Brother star said "everyone was at it" when asked about Operation Yewtree

Morley admitted there was a culture of grabbing women (Channel 5)

Coronation Street actor Ken Morley, who went into the Celebrity Big Brother House on Wednesday night, admitted to "groping and grabbing" women.

In an interview with The Sun, the 71-year-old actor and comedian said: “People like Jim Davidson were [victims of a witch hunt]. You look at panto people, the dancers that were doing it. They wouldn’t do it now because it’s so suggestive.

“Why shouldn’t it be suggestive? We’ve got a puritan element coming into it now.

“You’re terrified of laying your hand on a woman now as a man because you know they’ll say: ‘Christ, I’ve been assaulted’, or: ‘You’re in my personal space’. We have gone a bit too far at the moment.”

The actor, who played Reg Holdsworth in the soap and also starred in 'Allo 'Allo! in the Eighties, added:

“Everybody was at it, I was at it, we were all at it. Groping and grabbing was just part of the course.”

When the paper asked him why certain stars had been questioned by police as part of Operation Yewtree, Morley said: “It was regarded as normal. Some get done, don't they?”

Morley's remarks come almost a year after fellow Coronation Street actor Bill Roache was cleared of all sexual abuse charges, and as the focus on entertainers' and politicians' historic sexual behaviour intensifies.

Ken Morley's representative has yet to comment.