ROLF’S £200K BID TO RETURN TO OZ Shamed entertainer’s big-money plan to clear his name collapses
ROLF Harris spent £200,000 on lawyers in a failed attempt to clear his name.
The disgraced entertainer, 87, hired legal experts in a bid to quash his convictions and return home to Australia “a hero”.
But his plan ended in failure last week when just one of his 12 indecent assault convictions was overturned.
A legal source close to Harris, who declined to be named, told the Daily Star Sunday: “Rolf is furious with how this has turned out.
“He has accused his lawyers of ‘taking him for a ride’ even though it is him who protests his innocence despite the evidence against him.
“Rolf has been told this is the end of the line.
His lawyers have done all they can and there is now nowhere for him to go.
“He spent an awful lot of money just to have one conviction overturned, but his reputation is in ruins.
“Despite that, Rolf is so arrogant that he’s decided to ‘go back to the drawing board’ and have yet another go at clearing his name.
“None of us understands what this might involve.”
The source added: “Rolf cannot accept his guilt. In his mind, he is innocent.
“He has also convinced his wife and daughter of the same thing.” The insider claimed Harris is “obsessed” with clearing his name.
He added: “For the Harris family, Britain is now forever associated with Rolf ’s disgrace and his time in prison. “So they have pinned their hopes on leaving it behind and spending their final years somewhere new.” On Thursday, three judges decided Harris’ conviction for assaulting an eight-yearold girl at a Portsmouth leisure centre in 1969 was “unsafe”.
But the Court of Appeal refused him permission to try to overturn his 11 other convictions. That means Harris is still guilty of assaulting girls as young as 13 in a series of attacks during the 1970s and 1980s.
In July 2014, Harris was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison.
He served almost three years of the sentence at HMP Stafford before being released in May.
Earlier this year the Daily Star Sunday revealed how Harris was branded a “dirty bastard” by builders who spotted him out shopping in the DIY chain Screwfix close to his home in Bray, Berks.