Stepfather of girl, 7, abused by Rolf Harris says sex attack didn’t happen
THE stepfather of Rolf Harris’s youngest victim told the Court of Appeal yesterday that the sex attack on the sevenyear-old could not have happened.
Lawyers for the disgraced star have begun a fresh bid to clear his name by questioning the evidence that two victims and witnesses gave to his trial.
They include a ‘Walter Mitty character’ who is said to have lied about seeing Harris at a community centre in Portsmouth where he groped the girl.
She claimed she was sexually assaulted at the venue after asking for his autograph in 1969. The woman, who received £22,000 in compensation for her ordeal, told jurors at Harris’s trial in 2014 that he touched her intimately with his ‘big hairy hands’ and ‘aggressively’ fondled her twice.
But Harris, 87, pictured, said he had never been to the community centre. David Thomas James, the only witness police found who claimed to see him there, was yesterday exposed as a fantasist with dishonesty convictions who boasted of fighting in the Korean War when he was really a trucker.
His wife said he had never gone to the community centre and had never produced autographs for their children.
Yesterday, the stepfather of the victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – told the court he would never have let her go out on her own to a community centre when she was just seven.
The retired businessman said he had never heard of Harris visiting the community centre and none of his 400 local clients ever mentioned the event.
Stephen Vullo QC, defending, raised doubts about a second victim after Harris’s lawyers saw her medical records.
She had said she tried to kill herself after being abused by the star at the age of 15. But Harris claimed she made up the story so she could sell it for £33,000.
Yesterday, it emerged that she failed to mention Harris in 49 appointments for treatment and therapy for abuse.
Harris was convicted of 12 indecent assaults at Southwark Crown Court in June 2014 on four women. He was freed in May after serving five years and nine months in jail. The hearing continues.