Bill Roache has caused outrage by appearing to defend stars who sleep with underage girls – and claiming sex abuse victims are paying the price for their behaviour in “previous lives”.

In an astonishing TV interview, the Coronation Street star said it was easy for famous men to be “trapped” by adoring young groupies who throw themselves at them.

And he said of the victims: “If you accept that you are pure love, and if you know that you are pure love and therefore live that pure love, these things won’t happen to you.”

The remark prompted interviewer Garth Bray to ask: “To some people that sounds perhaps like you’re saying victims bring things on themselves – is that what you’re saying?”

Roache replied: “Not quite, but then yes I am, because everything that happens to us has been a result of what we have been in previous lives.”

The 80-year-old actor, who has played Corrie’s Ken Barlow for 53 years, made his bizarre comments in an explosive interview with New Zealand’s One News channel.

Talking about people who are accused of being abusers, he insisted: “Whether they’re proven guilty or not, we should not be judgmental about anybody, ever”.

He added: “If somebody has done something wrong then the law will take its course, but even so all of us, whatever whether they’re proven guilty or not – we shouldn’t go around condemning, unforgiving.

“We should always be totally forgiving about everything.”

Quiz: Coronation Street actor William Roache interviewed in New Zealand

Discussing paedophilia, Roache said it was a complex issue that had been “stirred up” by the Jimmy Savile case.

He added: “Paedophilia is absolutely horrendous. ­Paedophiles should be sought out, rooted out and dealt with.

“But there’s a fringe of people who, particularly pop singers, they have these groupies.

“These girls, who come, they’re sexually active, sexually mature, they don’t ask for their birth certificate, they don’t know what age they may be.

“But they’re certainly not grooming them and exploiting them, but they can be caught in this trap.

“These people are instantly stigmatised, some will be innocent, some will not, but until such time as it’s proven there should be anonymity for both.”

But last night Roache’s comments caused outrage.

Dr Jon Bird of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, and a victim of abuse himself, slammed the soap star’s remarks – particularly his suggestion that victims were somehow to blame for being abused.

He said: “This claim is completely disgusting, and on a deeply personal level I am both hurt and offended – as I am sure many other victims will be.

"I have spent years undergoing therapy trying to come to terms with what happened to me, while he has enjoyed the privileged life of a well-paid television actor on ­Coronation Street.

“Mr Roache has belittled the hurt and pain of others without any understanding of the circumstances himself. He should be ashamed of himself.”

Roache – who famously posed in full druid’s outfit at Stonehenge three decades ago – has made no secret of his unconventional beliefs.

He is a member of the Pure Love Movement, which advocates that love can cure illness and end suffering.

He has previously claimed his daughter Edwina, who died aged 18 months in 1984, is now a nurse in the afterlife.

He said last September: “She is helping other children who have passed over to understand what has happened.”

Despite regularly attending a spiritual group, he insists he is not a spiritualist, and claimed last year that the earth was moving into a new “golden age”.

He said: “The earth will continue to cleanse itself while material and negative things will collapse and cease to be.

"The energy and light of the Creator is love. Love is the life force, it is everything, it is the law of attraction.

“I have always known that there are beings around me, loving and guiding, and never more so than now.”