Sex charges Harris freed from jail to be in court
ROLF Harris has been released from prison, jail staff have confirmed.
The Australia-born former television star (87) was released from HMP Stafford yesterday morning.
He is reported to have left Stafford prison in the early of hours of yesterday, and managed to avoid waiting camera crews.
However he was photographed later that morning as he got out of a car and walked into his home at Bray, Berkshire.
Among the bag of belongings which were taken into his house were a collection of Australian stamps, a toothbrush and toothpaste.
His release means Harris will be able to appear in person, on bail, when his indecent assault trial resumes on Monday at Southwark Crown Court.
Harris, who denies four charges of indecent assault against three women between 1971 and 1983, had previously appeared via video link.
Jurors at Southwark Crown Court had previously been told Harris had already been convicted and sentenced for other offences in 2014.
Judge Deborah Taylor told jurors on Thursday: “He (Harris) will no longer be appearing in the court via video link and he will be attending what remains of his trial in person next week.”
The trial, which opened on May 15, did not sit yesterday.
Former Animal Hospital host Harris is standing trial accused of indecently assaulting three teenage girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
He is also alleged to have touched a 13-year-old girl’s breast after filming a children’s TV programme and asked her: “Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?”
He is separately accused of twice groping a third girl, aged 16, after being paid £100 to appear on ITV celebrity show Star Games in 1978, and telling her she was “a little bit irresistible”, the court heard.
He denies four charges of indecent assault against three women between 1971 and 1983.