‘I told him he had ruined my life’

WHEN Rolf Harris’s alleged victim confronted him over the misery he had caused her, he pleaded for forgiveness, the court heard.

The woman, who was in her early thirties at the time, invited him to her parents’ home so she could tell him how 16 years of abuse had ‘ruined her life’, it was alleged. She told Southwark Crown Court: ‘I was angry, but felt that I was strong enough to approach him.

‘He was sorry for what he had done. I told him that he caused me misery. I said I was really scared of him.

‘He said, “I didn’t realise”.’ He thought that we were friends, and I said, “I’m not your friend”.’

He asked for her forgiveness, which she granted but only ‘out of fear,’ she said. The meeting, in 1997, was the last time Harris met the woman. She had drunk beforehand because by that time she had become an alcoholic.

The woman finally told her parents about the abuse when she was an adult after her mother caught her drinking gin early in the day, the court heard.

Her father later wrote to Harris saying he was ‘disgusted’ by his actions and never wanted to see him again.

The woman also told Harris’s daughter, Bindi about the alleged abuse.

‘She was pretty devastated but she wasn’t cross at me at all,’ said the victim. ‘She was really angry with her father and obviously very upset.’

She kept in touch with Bindi but last saw her about six years ago when they had a ‘bust up’, she said.