Rolf could be free in July as he’s cleared of 3 attacks
ROLF Harris could be freed from jail in just five months after he was cleared of three alleged sex attacks yesterday.
The disgraced entertainer waved at his supporters in the public gallery, nodding with a slight smile, after he was found not guilty of two indecent assaults and one sexual assault.
Jurors could not reach verdicts on four further alleged attacks on girls as young as 13, and the prosecution has a week to decide whether to apply for a retrial.
But even if he faces trial for a third time, Harris will still be freed automatically on July 19, halfway through his current sentence of five years and nine months.
His acquittal yesterday raises the prospect he could now appeal against his original conviction for molesting four victims between 1968 and 1986.
His lawyer accused those women of lying, dubbing them ‘ false victims’ hunting for compensation from the entertainer’s £11million fortune. During the latest case, it emerged that Harris had hired private investigators to dig up information about victims from his first trial, with his lawyer claiming newly uncovered evidence had fatally undermined their accounts.
Stephen Vullo QC told Southwark Crown Court: ‘What do we say about trial one? In short we say that the jury got it wrong in the first trial.’ Last night, Harris’s victims reacted with anger to his defence team’s tactics of portraying them as liars in a bid to undermine the latest, unrelated allegations.
A childhood friend of his daughter Bindi, who was molested by Harris ‘like a toy’ from the age of 13, said his release from prison would have a negative impact on her life.
The woman, who cannot be identified, added: ‘ I’m very disappointed that he will be out so soon.’ Harris’s youngest victim Wendy Wild, who has waived her right to anonymity, said the decision by Harris’s team to question her evidence had ‘brought up all sorts of emotions from the past’.
She described the tactic as ‘brazen’, adding: ‘I knew that out of all the other victims he would come after me, it was obvious.’ Mr Vullo called former police officers to testify, who said they could not remem- ber Harris visiting Portsmouth at the time Miss Wild said he groped her in the 1960s, when she was seven. But the officers conceded that it was possible Harris could have been in the area.
Miss Wild has already settled a civil case with him for £22,000 in compensation.
The other three victims are thought to have settled for similar sums, forcing Harris to liquidate some of his companies and sell artwork and mementoes.
Harris’s lawyers produced a phone conversation during his latest trial condemning the testimony of another victim, Tonya Lee, who has also waived her right to anonymity. She was groped while visiting the UK from Australia with a theatre group in 1986, aged 15.
The jury heard her abusive expartner had shouted at her: ‘You lied about the Rolf Harris s***.’
Harris was put on trial for a second time after seven women came forward following his 2014 conviction to accuse him of similar assaults between 1971 and 2004.
Yesterday he was cleared of attacking a 12-year-old autograph hunter outside Radio Victory in Portsmouth in 1977. He was also acquitted of groping a blind woman at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and assaulting a BBC worker at a party.
But after 26 hours of deliberations, jurors were unable to reach verdicts on four further charges of indecent assault.
These included one against a 14year-old girl at the Lyceum Theatre in London in July 1971, and a 16-year-old in a taxi at the filming of TV show Star Games in Cambridge in 1978. Harris could also be retried over alleged assaults on a 13-year-old at BBC Television Centre in 1983, and a 19-year-old at a London music studio in 2002.
The defendant watched most of his trial via video link from HMP Stafford after claiming he was too ‘ill, tired, or hungry’ to attend in person. But he was made to appear in court for the closing speeches and verdict.
Notably absent yesterday were his wife Alwen Hughes and their daughter, who have not attended a single day of the three-week case, despite being by Harris’s side every day during the first trial. His potential retrial will be considered at a hearing next Wednesday.
‘Brought up all sorts of emotions’