A civil trial against the actor Bill Cosby over allegations he assaulted a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s is due to start today, less than a year after he was released from jail.

Judy Huth, now 62, alleges the actor made her drink beer and molested her on a bed in 1974 when she was 15.

She claims Cosby, now 84, who is not planning to attend the hearing in California, invited her and a friend to the Los Angeles mansion the week after meeting them on a film set at a park.

There, she alleges, he forced her to perform a sex act.

Ms Huth sued Cosby in 2014 and is seeking unspecified damages for sexual battery and emotional distress.

He denies the allegations.

Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said: “We are confident that the evidence will discredit Plaintiff’s 50-year-old allegation.”

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Gloria Allred, who represents Ms Huth, said her client was not commenting on the case.

Cosby is best known for his role as the lovable husband and father in the 1980s TV comedy The Cosby Show, which earnt him the nickname “America’s Dad”.

His family-friendly reputation was left in ruins after more than 50 women accused him of multiple sexual assaults over nearly five decades.

In 2018 Cosby was jailed for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, an employee at his alma mater Temple University, in his home 14 years earlier.

The conviction was overturned last year after Cosby had served more than two years of a three to 10-year sentence.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby should never have faced the charges because a previous local district attorney had publicly promised in 2005 that he would not be prosecuted.

The US Supreme Court declined prosecutors’ petition for a review of the decision in March.

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