Rolf Harris indecently assaulted schoolgirl in Portsmouth, jury told

A blind, disabled woman was also among those allegedly assaulted by Harris, who is on trial for another wave of sex charges spanning 30 years, it was claimed.

The TV entertainer allegedly assaulted seven girls and women in a series of “brazen” assaults between 1971 and 2004, the jury at Southwark Crown Court was told.

The alleged incidents took place in public, and prosecutor Jonathan Rees asked jury members to consider whether it was the 86-year-old’s celebrity status that had made him so audacious.

Comments often accompanied the unwanted caresses, the court heard, with Harris allegedly telling a 12-year-old girl who approached him at the Portsmouth event ‘let’s give you a little cuddle’ before indecently assaulting her.

Some of the alleged victims were young fans eager to get a signed autograph from their Aussie hero, while another was a blind and disabled woman, the court heard.

The 27-year-old woman, described as ‘vulnerable’ by the prosecutor, was allegedly indecently assaulted by Harris at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in 1970s. She was not at that time an in-patient.

Jurors were told Harris, who appeared by video-link, was serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims.

He ‘continues to maintain his innocence’ regarding these offences, the prosecutor told the jury.

Harris has pleaded not guilty to the seven fresh counts of indecent assault and one alternative charge of sexual assault.

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