Harris wanted to sit sex assault trial at home
ROLF HARRIS asked to stand trial for indecent assault from the comfort of his living room, it has emerged, as he walked free from court following the collapse of the most recent case against him.
Harris spoke yesterday of his “relief ” at being found not guilty of four sex attacks on girls as young as 13 between 1971 and 1983, after a jury could not reach verdicts.
There was a cry of “well done, Rolf ” from the public gallery as the former television star left the courtroom.
Harris was jailed in 2014 for a separate string of sex attacks on young women and girls.
Yesterday’s result concluded a retrial, and prosecutors later said they would not seek a second.
Harris, 87, was released from HMP Stafford on licence part-way through the retrial after serving less than three years of his earlier sentence.
It emerged yesterday he asked to appear via video link from his Berkshire house to be close to his ill wife Alwen, 85. However, the judge rejected his request to remain at his home in Bray, near Maidenhead, ordering that he must attend court each day.
This was despite him offering to foot the bill for a professional video link to be installed.
In a statement read outside Southwark Crown Court in London by his lawyer, Daniel Berke, Harris referenced his wife’s health.
He said: “Whilst I’m pleased that this is finally all over, I feel no sense of victory, only relief.
“I’m 87 years old, my wife is in ill health and we simply want to spend our remaining time together in peace.”
He had been accused of indecently touching a 14-year-old girl in 1971 after she asked him for an autograph at a music event for children in London.
The musician and artist had also been accused of twice groping another teenage girl after he was paid £100 to appear on ITV celebrity show Star Games in 1978, and telling her she was “a little bit irresistible”. He was also alleged to have touched one complainant after a recording of the BBC children’s show Saturday Superstore in 1983 before asking her “do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?”
Harris, who denied all the charges, did not give evidence, with his lawyers saying he did not remember any of the events in question.
Following the collapse of the case yesterday, prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC told the court: “We have reviewed whether it would be appropriate to seek a further retrial on these allegations. We have come to the firm view that it would not.
“Accordingly, we offer no evidence to the four counts on the indictment.”