YORK actor David Bradley can finally eat a chocolate Bafta after winning the real thing for his role in the hit crime drama Broadchurch.

Bradley, who was born in Burton Stone Lane, was named best supporting actor in the series, which also picked up the top award for best drama at the Baftas ceremony in London on Sunday night.

Accepting his award, Bradley revealed his agent had sent him a full-size chocolate Bafta at Christmas and joked: “Now finally I can take it down from the mantelpiece and eat it.”

Speaking backstage, he said Broadchurch had just become a “kind of phenomenon” and he praised its writer, Chris Chibnall, for “keeping all the plates twirling in the air.”

Bradley is known for his part as Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films. He also won a top role last year in the BBC’s 50th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who, in which he played the original time-travelling Doctor, William Hartnell.

Bradley, who has also taken on substantial roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and who won the Laurence Oliver Award for Best Supporting Actor playing The Fool in King Lear, has told previously how he started out working at a York factory.

He served a five-year apprenticeship in optical instruments at Vickers, and then worked at its subsidiary, Cooke, Troughton and Sims.

He found his way into three theatre groups and impresario Edward Taylor, of York’s Co-Op Players, told him he should think seriously about drama school.

He landed a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and later joined the Sheffield Playhouse, before being snapped up by Granada TV for its long-running series, Family At War.

He worked with Olivier in the 1970s and played Christ in York’s Mystery Plays in 1976, and then God in the production of the Mysteries at the National Theatre.