Harris abuse claim ‘not about money’
BRITAIN: A woman has told a London court it was ‘‘awful’’ to learn that her friends were sought out by private investigators hired by Rolf Harris after she laid a complaint that he groped her when she was 13.
The woman, now aged in her late 40s, said yesterday it was never about getting compensation from Harris but about seeking ‘‘vindication and justice’’.
She has told the court that Harris came up to her at the BBC Television Centre in 1983, put his hand under her breast and said, ‘‘Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?’’.
The 87-year-old entertainer is facing a jury trial at Southwark Crown Court on four indecent assault charges involving three complainants.
Harris sat quietly in a glass booth in the courtroom, listening to the woman’s evidence with the help of court earphones.
She told the court that when she told her older sister and her parents what Harris had done, they did not believe her.
She said that after not being believed by her family and other people for nearly 30 years, it was very hard to take a complaint to police.
Going through with the complaint had been ‘‘horrendous’’, with friends and work colleagues having Harris’s private investigators turning up on their doorsteps to find out what she had told them.
Her older sister attended the 1983 event and also gave evidence yesterday, telling the court that Harris had been ‘‘quite cuddly’’ with her younger sibling. She said her sister had called Harris a ‘‘perv’’, but at the time she found that ‘‘very difficult to believe’’. - AAP