Disgraced entertainment icon Rolf Harris has gone on trial to face seven further charges of indecent assault and one of sexual assault
One-time entertainment legend Rolf Harris committed a series of seven indecent assaults and one sexual assault between 1971 and 2004, prosecution alleged in Southwark Crown Court today.
Jonathan Rees QC appeared for the prosecution while the Tie Me Kangaroo Down singer and TV personality, now 86, appeared via video link from Stafford Prison as Judge Alistair McCreath ruled last year that his age and health were a factor.
Harris is currently serving time for four other indecent assaults.
Mr Rees said the alleged assault could all be described as 'unwanted groping' and all took place 'when there were other people in the near vicinity'.
According to the BBC, the allegations include:
- Pulling a 14-year-old girl onto his lap and putting his hand up her skirt at a youth music event in London in 1971.
- Putting his hand up the skirt of a 12-year-old girl when she went with her mother to get an autograph in Portsmouth.
- Another alleged victim was a 27-year-old disabled and blind woman. Mr Rees said Mr Harris 'crouched down, kissed the back of her neck and... began slobbering over her'.
- Placing his hand under the clothed breast of a 13-year-old girl after attending children's television show Saturday Superstore in 1983.
- Stroking the lower back of an 18-year-old woman at a music studio near London Bridge in 2002.
- A then BBC employee, aged 42 at the time, has accused Mr Harris of grabbing her breasts and thrusting his crotch against her at an event after the filming of a television show in 2004.
Witnesses would be hidden from Mr Harris's view by screens, the court heard.
The trial continues.
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