I was sexually attracted to a 13-year-old, admits 84-year-old Rolf Harris

In a court session yesterday, 84-year-old Rolf Harris admitted that he sexually admired the body of a 13-year-old girl in bikini who was his daughter’s friend. Harris is in court to face sexual assault charges for “grooming” and “psychologically dominating” a 13-year-old girl before repeatedly sexually abusing her. Harris is charged with 12 counts of indecent assault against four girls, some as young as seven or eight, between 1968 and 1986. Yet, he denies all of the charges, seven of which relate to one woman.

According to Daily Mail UK,

Rolf Harris admitted in court yesterday that he sexually admired his daughter’s friend when she was just 13. The 84-year-old made the extraordinary statement as he conceded he is ‘pretty good at disguising the dark side’ of his character. In a series of sensational exchanges, Southwark Crown Court heard how he thought his daughter Bindi’s young friend had a ‘great body’ when he saw her in a bikini on holiday in Hawaii in 1978.

The married father of one, who was then 46, recalled how he had complimented the schoolgirl – who was ‘like a daughter’ to him. Prosecutor Sasha Wass, QC, asked him: ‘What you were saying is, “You have got a great body”, weren’t you?’ He replied: ‘I suppose so.’ The prosecutor continued: ‘When she was 13?’ Quietly, he answered: ‘Yes’

The prosecutor added: ‘You made it plain you did admire her body and you admired it sexually, that’s what that is.’ Harris answered: ‘It did not compute to that in my mind.’ Prosecution QC Sasha Wass (SW) today put it to Rolf Harris (RH) compliments he made to a girl about her bikini was actually a comment on her body, and suggested he was admiring her sexually.

Yesterday the court heard how the entertainer’s daughter flew into a rage when her friend told her of her father’s betrayal, and smashed up paintings he had given her in around 1997. Harris said a ‘huge row’ had erupted, adding: ‘I believe she told Bindi – I was away in Australia – and I believe she had smashed a couple of paintings that I had given her, she was furious.’ But the star insisted that he was ‘targeted’ by her flirtatious friend who seduced him when she was 18 and ‘instigated all the moves’.

He said the pair had a relationship based on ‘a mutual feeling of warmth and affection’. Asking him to explain a letter of apology he later wrote to the alleged victim’s father after she had told her family of the alleged abuse, Miss Wass accused Harris of thinking he was ‘untouchable’. Speaking in a low voice, Harris told jurors: ‘That’s not what I intended at all.’

He denied getting ‘a thrill’ out of sexually assaulting the victim in Bindi’s presence, including one occasion when he allegedly performed a sex act on the girl when she was 15 as Bindi, then 16, slept a few feet away. He insisted that it would be ‘physically not possible’ to look at his daughter and perform the act. The Australian told jurors that he ‘laughed in disbelief’ when the alleged victim confronted him in 1997 at the age of 31. He claimed the only reason the woman was ‘emotionally dead’ and ‘damaged’ was because she ‘felt scorned’ when their relationship fizzled out and he later began an affair with his 35-year-old housekeeper.

Harris is accused of attacking three other girls aged seven to 19 between 1968 and 1986. Yesterday Miss Wass accused him of adopting a ‘technique’ of ‘a friendly hug, disguised as sexual molestation’ in all the assaults. She added: ‘There are a series of events in this case where you have taken advantage of the fact that you are a well-loved children’s entertainer.’ She also accused him of being aware of child abuse tactics having taken part in an NSPCC campaign to raise awareness of the dangers. But Harris told the court his accusers had invented the same lie, saying: ‘They are all making it up’.

Yesterday his friend pantomime producer Paul Elliott, dubbed the ‘king of pantomime’, said Harris was ‘warm, cuddly and jolly’ and he had never been concerned about his behaviour around children.

He denies 12 counts of indecent assault.

The trial continues. Despite Harris is seen coming to court with his wife and daughter in tow, he admitted he goes home alone every night. It came after the 84-year-old entertainer told Southwark Crown Court his daughter Bindi ‘furiously’ smashed up paintings he had given her on learning about the affair with her friend.

Sasha Wass QC said: ‘You have been coming to court everyday, walking slowly into court with Bindi on one arm and your wife on the other’, and asked if they travelled home together.

Harris said ‘no’.

Ms Wass asked: ‘So it’s just for the cameras is it? Coming in with them?’

‘It’s to show support,’ he said.

Tell us what you think, do you think he’s as innocent as he claims?

Source: Daily Mail UK