Rolf Harris jail sentence to be reviewed by attorney general

Dominic Grieve receives public complaints that term of five years and nine months for indecent assault of girls is unduly lenient

Rolf Harris has been jailed for five years and nine months after abusing his fame and trust to indecently assault a series of young women and girls, a sentence the attorney general's office was immediately asked to reconsider as potentially too lenient.

"You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all," Mr Justice Sweeney told Harris, 84, who sat impassive and without visible emotion in the glass-walled dock at Southwark crown court. "Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours, but you have no one to blame but yourself."

In the case of three of the four victims, Sweeney told Harris, he took advantage of the trust placed in him because of his celebrity status to carry out the attacks. With the final victim, the childhood friend of Harris's daughter Bindi Nicholls, whom Harris began grooming when she was 13, the star abused a different type of trust, the judge said: that placed in him by the girl's parents.

"You clearly got a thrill from committing the offences whilst others were present or nearby," Sweeney told Harris. "Whilst such others did not realise what you were doing, their presence added to the ordeal of your victims."

The Australian-born TV star and artist, a fixture of popular entertainment for six decades, was jailed for between six and 15 months for each of 12 counts of indecent assault, dating between 1968 and 1986. A jury unanimously convicted him of the charges on Monday.


Rolf Harris leaving his home for sentencing by boat Harris leaves his home by boat for court on Friday morning. Photograph: Sky TV

Sweeney made some jail terms concurrent and some consecutive, giving the total of five years and nine months. With good behaviour, Harris could leave jail on licence in under three years.

This was less than predicted by many observers – each of the 12 offences had a maximum term of between two and 10 years – and immediately the attorney general's office received calls from the public asking it to look at whether it was too lenient.

A spokesman for the office said it had received "a small number" of calls from the public, meaning the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, has 28 days to decide whether to refer the sentence to the court of appeal for possible increase.

Harris, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and colourful striped tie, gave no visible response to the sentence other than to briefly stand when asked to do so by the judge. After Sweeney told the pair of dock officers flanking Harris: "Thank you, you may take him down," he was led out of the far door of the dock to custody suites. One of the officers carried Harris's prison bag, a striped leather suitcase.

He was taken to Wandsworth prison in south-west London for assessment, before probable transfer to a lower-security open jail.


Photographers try to take a picture of the veteran entertainer Rolf Harris, at Southwark Crown Court Photographers try to take a picture of Harris as he leaves court. Photograph: Bogdan Maran/AP

Harris was watched in court by a dozen relatives and supporters, including Nicholls, 50, but not his wife of 56 years, Alwen, who has been intermittently ill during the trial. The supporters also gave no reaction to the sentence, merely talking quietly among themselves.

Just before the sentence the court was told that in the light of the indecent assault verdicts prosecutors no longer planned to pursue four charges of possessing indecent images of children, details of which had been kept from the trial jury.

A pre-trial hearing had been told police who searched Harris's home in 2012 in connection with the assaults found 33 allegedly indecent images of children on his home computer and evidence he had visited sites with names such as "my little nieces" and "Russian virgins". Prosecutors said some of the images seemed to show girls aged 13 or under, while Harris's defence counsel said this was not so, and they would have contested the charges.

The sentencing hearing heard impact statements from the four victims, giving at times distressing details. Harris listened intently as they were read to the court, but again gave no sign of emotion.

The statement from Nicholls's former friend, now in her 50s, explained that Harris's assaults, from the age of 13 until her late 20s, devastated her life. She said she was left feeling "dirty, grubby and disgusting". She became an alcoholic who suffered panic attacks and could not keep a job or a loving relationship. "I have never had a meaningful relationship whilst sober. I have also never been able to hold down a job," her statement said. "Rolf Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck. He made me feel like a sexual object."

Sweeney made it clear he found this credible, and noted the significant impact of two brief gropes; against an eight-year-old autograph hunter at an event in Portsmouth in 1969, and on a teenage waitress at a TV filming in Cambridge in 1978.

Of the younger victim the judge said: "In her victim impact statement [the woman] states, which I am sure is true, that you took her childhood innocence, for which she blamed herself and became an angry child and teenager, unable to express herself and unable to trust men."

On the effect on the final victim, Tonya Lee – she waived her right to anonymity after giving media interviews before the trial – the judge agreed Harris's assault of her when she was 15 and on a UK tour with her Australian youth theatre group had a significant impact but was not the sole factor in her subsequently chaotic life.

Peter Watt, director of national services at the NSPCC children's charity, which says it has received a number of calls from other possible victims of Harris, said the entertainer had been "opportunistic and brazen in targeting young girls and women".


Rolf Harris with Bindi Harris with his daughter, Bindi Nicholls, earlier during the trial. Photograph: Paul Davey/Demotix/Corbis

Watt said: "This sentence reflects the seriousness of his crimes and hopefully those he preyed upon can finally find some peace. It sends a message that no one is untouchable and justice can come at any time."

The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service, an abuse charity, said the Harris case should prompt a law obliging adults to report colleagues whom they suspect of abuse.

The case has destroyed Harris's formerly impeccable reputation, built up over a six-decade entertainment career, much of it working with children. He faces losing his CBE and other various honours and awards, while his home town in Western Australia home, Bassendean, is to remove a plaque in his honour.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/04/rolf-harris-jail-sentence-review-attorney-general


Wonder what they will decide, and it appears he is going to an open prison.

Five years???? Is that supposed to be a joke???

Apparently not!

Consecutive sentences are quite rare aren't they? I don't think the judge was lenient.