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Rolf Harris jailed for five years nine months for indecently assaulting girls Rolf Harris jailed for five years nine months for indecently assaulting girls
(about 1 hour later)
Rolf Harris has been jailed for carrying out a series of indecent assaults on young women and girls, including an eight-year-old autograph hunter and the 13-year-old friend of his daughter. Rolf Harris has been jailed for five years and nine months for indecently assaulting young women and girls after the trial judge told the 84-year-old entertainer he had taken advantage of the trust provided by his fame.
The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, sentenced the 84-year-old entertainer to a total of five years and nine months in prison on 12 counts of indecent assault. Unless released earlier, Harris will serve half the total jail sentence – some of the individual sentences are to be served consecutively and others concurrently – and will be released on licence for the remainder of the sentence, the judge said. "You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all," Mr Justice Sweeney told an expressionless Harris, who sat in the glass-walled dock at Southwark crown court. "Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours, but you have no one to blame but yourself."
As Harris stood to hear the sentences, there was no reaction from him or members of his family, including his daughter, Bindi Nicholls. His wife, Alwen, did not attend. Harris, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and colourful striped tie, was then led away through the side of the dock with an officer carrying his bag. In the case of three of the four victims, Sweeney told Harris, he "took advantage of the trust placed in you because of your celebrity status" to carry out the attacks. With the final victim, the childhood friend of Harris's daughter Bindi Nicholls, who Harris began grooming aged 13, the star abused a different type of trust; the trust placed in him by the girl's parents.
A jury at Southwark crown court on Monday unanimously found Harris guilty of the 12 charges of indecent assault, including seven against the childhood friend of his daughter, beginning when the girl was aged 13 and on holiday. The court heard that Harris continued a sexual liaison with the woman, 35 years his junior, until her late 20s. "You clearly got a thrill from committing the offences whilst others were present or nearby," the judge told Harris. "Whilst such others did not realise what you were doing, their presence added to the ordeal of your victims."
Before a packed courtroom on Friday, Sweeney told Harris that while he had been an entertainer and TV personality of international standing, "from 1969 to 1986 you were also a sex offender". The Australian-born TV star and artist, a fixture of popular entertainment for six decades, was jailed for between six and 15 months for each of 12 counts of indecent assault, dating between 1968 and 1986. A jury unanimously convicted him of the charges on Monday.
"You took advantage of the trust placed in you, because of your celebrity status … You clearly got a thrill from committing the offences whilst others were present or nearby … [which] added to the ordeal of your victims. It is clear from the evidence that what you did has had a significant adverse effect on each victim. Sweeney made some jail terms concurrent and some consecutive, giving a total which was less than some observers had predicted. With good behaviour he could potentially leave jail on licence in less than three years.
"You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all. Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours but you have no one to blame but yourself." Harris, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and colourful striped tie, stood for the sentence but otherwise expressed no emotion. After Sweeney told the pair of dock officers flanking Harris, "Thank you, you may take him down" he was led out of the far door of the dock to custody suites. One of the officers carried Harris's prison bag, a striped leather suitcase.
Before sentencing, Harris listened impassively as victim impact statements were read out to the court. The former friend of Nicholls said the abuse he inflicted had led to her becoming an alcoholic, wrecked her career and given her panic attacks. He was watched in court by around a dozen relatives and supporters, including Nicholls, 50, but not his wife of 56 years, Alwen. The supporters also gave no reaction to the sentence, merely talking quietly among themselves.
"The attacks that happened have made me feel dirty, grubby and disgusting. The whole sordid saga has traumatised me," the statement said. "As a young girl I had aspirations to have a career, settle down and have a family. However, as a direct result of his actions, this has never materialised. The knowledge of what he had done to me haunted me. However, his popularity with the British public made it harder for me to deal with." Harris faces the possible loss of much of his estimated £11m fortune. He will face a claim for significant prosecution costs, to be determined at a later date, and several of his victims have begun claims for compensation.
The woman said she had been convinced nobody would believe her. "My loved ones couldn't understand why I drank so much until I told them what Rolf had done to me for so long." Peter Watt, director of national services at the NSPCC children's charity, which says it has received a number of calls from other possible victims of Harris, said the entertainer had been "opportunistic and brazen in targeting young girls and women".
Another victim, who was assaulted by Harris when she visited England as a teenager, said the incident was a turning point in her life from which she had never recovered. Watt said: "He took advantage of their trust in him and we heard through the evidence of his courageous victims just how profoundly damaging his abuse was on them for decades after.
"I have never felt safe since, I live in a constant state of anxiety," she said. "What Mr Harris took from me was my very essence, I believe that it was for Mr Harris a forgettable moment but it was something for me I will never move on from. I know the person I am today is not the person I should have been." "This sentence reflects the seriousness of his crimes and hopefully those he preyed upon can finally find some peace. It sends a message that no one is untouchable and justice can come at any time."
A third victim, who was indecently assaulted by Harris as she sought his autograph at a community centre when she was seven or eight, said the incident had taken away her childhood. "I became an angry child, unable to express myself and unable to trust men," she said. The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service, an abuse charity, said the Harris case should prompt a law obliging adults to report colleagues whom they suspect of abuse. Simon Bass, chief executive of the charity, said people had been "turning a blind eye" to abuse for decades.
Speaking of this victim, the judge told Harris he had taken away her childhood. Harris showed no obvious emotion as the prosecution read at times distressing victim impact statements about the effect of his assaults on the four women.
Sweeney also said he had no doubt Harris "fancied" the friend of his daughter, and "it was your crimes against her that resulted in her becoming an alcoholic for many years with all that that entailed, and that thus you caused her severe psychological harm". The statement from Nicholls' former friend, now a woman in her 50s, explained that Harris's assaults, from the age of 13 until her late 20s, devastated her life. The woman said she was left feeling "dirty, grubby and disgusting". She became an alcoholic who suffered panic attacks and could not hold down a job or a loving relationship.
He praised all the victims for their "considerable courage" in coming forward, which they hadn't had the confidence to do at the time of the offending. "I have never had a meaningful relationship whilst sober. I have also never been able to hold down a job," her statement said. "Rolf Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck. He made me feel like a sexual object."
The defence counsel Sonia Woodley QC said in mitigation that apart from the assaults against his daughter's friend, Harris's crimes were brief and "opportunistic, not predatory". For the last 20 years he had led an "upright life", and he had been patron of 16 charities, she said. Sweeney made it clear he found this credible, telling Harris: "I have no doubt, in view of the evidence given at trial by [the victim] and by the doctors and counsellors who treated her, that it was your crimes against her that resulted in her becoming an alcoholic for many years with all that that entailed, and that thus, as I have already touched on, you caused her severe psychological harm."
Since his arrest in 2012 Harris had been "a prisoner in his own home" due to the media frenzy, Woodley said. He was now 84 and "living on borrowed time", and the prison term should reflect this. The judge noted the significant impact of two brief gropes; against an eight-year-old autograph hunter at an event in Portsmouth in 1969, and on a teenage waitress at a TV filming in Cambridge in 1978.
As well as the four victims whose evidence formed the charges, the trial heard evidence from six more alleged victims as "bad character" witnesses. Seven more alleged victims did not give their evidence for legal reasons. Of the younger victim the judge said: "In her victim impact statement [the woman] states, which I am sure is true, that you took her childhood innocence, for which she blamed herself and became an angry child and teenager, unable to express herself and unable to trust men."
During and since the court case several other women have come forward to make allegations against Harris, with the police and the NSPCC charity saying they have received a number of calls. Discussing the Cambridge assault, Sweeney told Harris: "You were clowning around and took advantage of the fact that she was somewhat awestruck. Again others were present. You groped her bottom, squeezing her left buttock a number of times."
The prosecution barrister Sasha Wass QC told the court on Friday that Harris had also been charged with four counts of viewing indecent images, which were to have been tried separately, but the Crown Prosecution Service would not pursue those charges in light of Monday's guilty verdicts. On the effect on the final victim, Tonya Lee – she waived her right to anonymity after giving media interviews before the trial – the judge agreed Harris's assault of her when she was 15 and on a UK tour with her Australian youth theatre group had a significant impact but was not the sole factor in her subsequently chaotic life.
Harris will pay prosecution costs on schedule, to be worked out later. Harris had also been charged with four counts of viewing indecent images, which were to have been tried separately, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue those charges in light of Monday's guilty verdicts.
Harris was one of the best-loved and enduring entertainers of his era, with a TV career dating back 60 years and a reputation for his good rapport with children. He now faces the possibility of losing much of his £11m fortune after some victims contacted a law firm specialising in civil compensation claims over sexual abuse. As well as the civil compensation suits, Harris faces being stripped of his various honours, including a CBE, professional fellowships and honorary degrees. His home town of Bassendean in Western Australia is to remove a plaque in his honour and his former school has taken down his artwork.
Since the verdict, Harris's home town in Western Australia, Bassendean, has begun to shed its association with the entertainer, stripping him of honours and making plans to remove a plaque outside his childhood home.