A jury has retired in the trial of former BBC television presenter Rolf Harris.
The Australian denies six counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault spanning four decades - with one charge alleging he groped a 13-year-old girl while she attended filming of a children’s show at the old BBC TV centre in White City.
The prosecution has argued it was in Harris’s nature to grope women, including young girls, in public places, saying he had been good at getting away with it for years.
Harris’s defence claimed he was innocent of not only these latest charges but also the 12 counts of indecent assault he was convicted of in 2014.
Among the charges levelled against the 86-year-old are that he slid his hand under a 13-year-old’s clothed breast after she attended a broadcast of children’s television show Saturday Superstore at BBC Television Centre in White City, west London, in 1983, and asked her: “Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?”
The most recent allegation relates to a woman, then aged in her forties, who said Harris thrust his crotch at her and grabbed her breasts in a “quick, opportunist grope” after the filming of a television show in 2004.
Harris did not give evidence during the three-week trial, with his defence team claiming he would not have had much to say other than that he could not remember any of the incidents taking place, and reiterating his denial.
He followed the first part of the trial via video-link from Stafford Prison, where he is serving a sentence for offences against four female victims.
He was brought to court as the defence case neared its end, on the orders of Judge Alistair McCreath, who said it was important he attended for the close of the trial.
The jury of seven women and five men first retired at Southwark Crown Court at around 3.30pm on Wednesday (February 1).
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