ROLF IN SEX CASE APPEAL

DISGRACED entertainer Rolf Harris has begun a Court of Appeal battle to clear his name.

Kiddy-fiddling Aussie Harris ( left), 87, is making a fresh bid to challenge “unsafe” indecent assault convictions.

His renewed application for permission to appeal is being considered by three leading judges in London.

The proceedings before Lord Justice Treacy, Mrs Justice McGowan and the Recorder of Preston, Judge Mark Brown, which starterd yesterday, relate to convictions in 2014.

The artist and musician, of Bray, Berks, was convicted of 12 indecent assaults at London’s Southwark Crown Court in June 2014, one on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two on girls in their early teens, and a catalogue of abuse against his daughter’s friend over 16 years.

A few months after he was found guilty he failed in an attempt to bring a challenge when a judge refused his application for permission to appeal after considering the case papers. During the latest round of his battle against conviction, the three judges will hear submissions on behalf of Harris, who has attended the hearing, and from prosecutors contesting the application.

Stephen Vullo QC, for Harris, will present four grounds of appeal during the hearing, which is expected to continue today.

One of the grounds is that there is “fresh” evidence which supports Harris’s case, and complaint is also made about a direction made to the jury by the trial judge relating to the credibility of complainants.

Harris, a family favourite for decades, was jailed for five years and nine months after being convicted of a string of assaults which took place between 1968 and 1986.

The television presenter has since been released from that sentence.

In May this year he was formally cleared of unconnected historical sex offences, which he had denied.

The four counts of indecent assault against girls as young as 13 were thrown out after a retrial ended with a hung jury.