Rolf Harris cleared of sex offences after jury fails to agree on a verdict
Disgraced television star Rolf Harris has walked free from court after being cleared of the latest historical child sex charges against him.
Harris 87, was formally cleared of four counts of indecent assault against girls as young as 13 yesterday after a retrial ended with a hung jury.
The convicted paedophile had been released on licence from HMP Stafford part-way through the trial after serving less than three years of a five year and nine month sentence for unconnected sex attacks on young girls and women.
Harris, dressed in a blue suit and pale blue tie, left Southwark Crown Court in London in a media scrum but did not answer any questions.
In a statement read by his lawyer, Daniel Berke, outside court, the Australia-born exanimal Hospital presenter said he wanted to be left “in peace” with his frail wife Alwen, 85. Harris 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.”
Harris is understood to still be pursuing an appeal against his original 2014 conviction for 12 indecent assaults – including one on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two on girls in their early teens and a catalogue of abuse of his daughter’s friend.
But the latest charges were dismissed after prosecutors decided against undertaking what would have been a second retrial.
Harris, who denied all the charges, did not give evidence.