Harris won’t face second retrial on sex charges after hung jury
DISGRACED television star Rolf Harris has walked free from court after being cleared of the latest historical child sex charges against him.
Harris (87) was formally cleared yesterday of four counts of indecent assault against girls as young as 13 after a retrial ended with a hung jury.
The convicted paedophile had been released on licence from HMP Stafford part-way through the trial after serving less than three years of a five-year and nine-month sentence for unconnected sex attacks on young girls and women.
Harris, smartly dressed in a blue suit and lighter blue tie, left Southwark Crown Court in London amid a media scrum yesterday, but did not answer any questions. In a statement read by his lawyer Daniel Berke outside court, the Australia-born former presenter said he wanted to be left “in peace” with his frail wife Alwen (85).
Harris said: “Whilst I’m pleased that this is finally all over, I feel no sense of victory, only relief.
“I’m 87 years old, my wife is in ill health and we simply want to spend our remaining time together in peace.”
Harris is understood to still be pursuing an appeal against his original 2014 conviction for 12 indecent assaults — one on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two on girls in their early teens and a catalogue of abuse of his daughter’s friend over 16 years.
But the latest charges were dismissed after prosecutors decided against undertaking what would have been a second retrial.
Harris had faced four charges of indecent assault over allegations involving three girls.
He denied all the charges and did not give evidence, with his lawyers saying he did not remember any of the events in question.
His lawyers claimed the women were motivated by greed, coming forward after he was convicted in the high-profile trial in June 2014, in a bid for fake compensation payments.
After the second trial jury was unable to reach verdicts on four historical indecent assault charges yesterday, prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC told the court: “We have reviewed whether it would be appropriate to seek a further retrial on these allegations. We have come to the firm view that it would not.
“Accordingly, we offer no evidence to the four counts on the indictment.”
Judge Deborah Taylor then formally found him not guilty of all four charges of indecent assault, which he had denied.