Europe

A French official says a robber with a hand grenade and an automatic handgun has stolen diamond necklaces and other jewellery from a Harry Winston store in the French Riviera city of Cannes. The stolen merchandise is estimated to be worth

15 million. Two women have told a London court they felt they wouldn’t be taken seriously if they took groping complaints to police against such a famous celebrity as Rolf Harris. One told Southwark Crown Court yesterday that in 1983, when she was 13, Harris groped her breast and said to her, ‘Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?” The woman, now in her late 40s, said her family and friends just couldn’t believe Harris would do such a thing, so she didn’t think police would believe her either. A second woman testifying against the 86-year-old said that when she was a 19-year-old backing singer in 2002 he had stroked her lower back. She said she thought she might be laughed at if she made a complaint against the celebrity. Both women were finally prompted to come forward after Harris was sentenced to jail on indecent assault charges in 2014. Harris is facing a second trial after pleading not guilty of indecently assaulting seven women between 1971 and 2004 when they were aged between 12 and 42.