AMID dramatic scenes of shock, Australian showman Rolf Harris has been
found guilty of all 12 child sex charges in a London court.
Harris faces a jail term, the length of which will be determined by Justice Nigel Sweeney on Friday and depending on a medical report that will be provided in the coming days.
“The type of sentence in mind is a custodial sentence, and he must be aware of that,’’ the judge said.
Daughter Bindi Harris sat open mouthed while Harris’s niece Jenny just shook her head while holding the hand of Harris’s wife Alwen. Rolf Harris sat impassive and emotionless, seemingly in shock, throughout.
Immediately afterwards the family gathered in a room next to the court hugging each other in teary support. Harris’s manager, Jan Kennedy, was supporting Bindi who had burst into tears.
The jury of six men and six women at Southwark Crown Court has found Harris, 84, is a sexual pervert with a demonic character lurking within, and found him guilty of decades of abuse of vulnerable young women.
The jury had come to its decision without having heard some previous disturbing allegations against Harris that the judge had ruled inadmissable.
One, a 24-year-old woman with psychiatric problems had met Harris in the garden of a holiday villa in 1999 where he put his hand in her trousers and touched her buttocks. Prosecutors had argued Harris had later gone into her bedroom and got into bed with her, where he digitally penetrated her, gave her oral sex and she did the same to him.
Harris faces a jail term, the length of which will be determined by Justice Nigel Sweeney on Friday and depending on a medical report that will be provided in the coming days.
“The type of sentence in mind is a custodial sentence, and he must be aware of that,’’ the judge said.
Daughter Bindi Harris sat open mouthed while Harris’s niece Jenny just shook her head while holding the hand of Harris’s wife Alwen. Rolf Harris sat impassive and emotionless, seemingly in shock, throughout.
Immediately afterwards the family gathered in a room next to the court hugging each other in teary support. Harris’s manager, Jan Kennedy, was supporting Bindi who had burst into tears.
The jury of six men and six women at Southwark Crown Court has found Harris, 84, is a sexual pervert with a demonic character lurking within, and found him guilty of decades of abuse of vulnerable young women.
The jury had come to its decision without having heard some previous disturbing allegations against Harris that the judge had ruled inadmissable.
One, a 24-year-old woman with psychiatric problems had met Harris in the garden of a holiday villa in 1999 where he put his hand in her trousers and touched her buttocks. Prosecutors had argued Harris had later gone into her bedroom and got into bed with her, where he digitally penetrated her, gave her oral sex and she did the same to him.
In another case, a high profile media personality in London, who
can’t be named, said she was molested by Harris as a television
interview was being recorded “as live’’ in the mid-1990s. A recording of
it shows her suddenly freezing, and quickly ending her questions.
Harris had faced 12 counts of indecent assault on four girls aged from seven or eight to 19 years from 1968 to 1986 in the six-week trial.
The jury forewoman read out “guilty’’ as each individual charge was read out.
The jury rejected Harris’s version that 10 women had lied to them, and that he engaged in consensual sex acts with a childhood friend of Bindi.
Instead they believed Bindi’s friend that he had assaulted and groomed her throughout 16 years of passionless and almost wordless abuse from the age of 13, which started in Hawaii and Australia in 1978.
Harris’s reputation has been trashed where his most private sexual details, including two extra marital affairs, the size of his penis, and his difficulties relating to Bindi, were aired.
Harris had faced 12 counts of indecent assault on four girls aged from seven or eight to 19 years from 1968 to 1986 in the six-week trial.
The jury forewoman read out “guilty’’ as each individual charge was read out.
The jury rejected Harris’s version that 10 women had lied to them, and that he engaged in consensual sex acts with a childhood friend of Bindi.
Instead they believed Bindi’s friend that he had assaulted and groomed her throughout 16 years of passionless and almost wordless abuse from the age of 13, which started in Hawaii and Australia in 1978.
Harris’s reputation has been trashed where his most private sexual details, including two extra marital affairs, the size of his penis, and his difficulties relating to Bindi, were aired.
