Rolf Harris Letter: I Am Sickened By Myself

Rolf Harris Letter: I Am Sickened By Myself
The 84-year-old admitted having sex with one of his alleged victims in a letter to her father - but insisted it was consensual.

Rolf Harris abused one of his daughter's friends on a motorway, in a theatre and in her family home while her parents were in another room, a court has heard.

The prosecution called the 84-year-old a "Jekyll And Hyde" character who thought he was "untouchable" because of his fame.

Harris listened via a hearing loop in the glass-fronted dock as the case against him was outlined by prosecutor Sasha Wass QC at Southwark Crown Court.

Ms Wass said: ''Mr Harris touched children and women alike in quite brazen circumstances. That may have been part of the excitement for him, knowing that he could get away with it.''

She added that once he was spotted inappropriately touching one of his victims.

"He just laughed and denied it," said Ms Wass. "Even when caught red-handed, he knew he was untouchable.''

The court heard that one victim, who is the subject of seven of the 12 counts, was on a holiday when Harris began abusing her in 1978 aged just 13.

Ms Wass said the victim had been ''in awe" of the defendant and went on to be "groomed like a pet" during 15 years of abuse.

Further incidents allegedly took place in a swimming pool, at a theatre and on the M4.

On one occasion Harris is accused of assaulting the victim at her home while her parents were in another room.

''He never had a meaningful conversation with her," Ms Wass added. "She was just his little toy."

The girl was said to have turned to alcohol at the age of 14 as a result of what she claims happened - and is now a "full blown alcoholic".

She eventually told her family about the alleged abuse in 1997.

The court heard how Harris then wrote to her father admitting a sexual relationship but claiming there was no "rape, physical force or brutality". He added that he was in a "state of object (sic) self-loathing".

The prosecution likened this to Bill Clinton admitting he had smoked cannabis but claiming he did not inhale.

The alleged victim eventually wrote a letter to police in 2012, 18 years after the abuse ended. The court heard how the Jimmy Savile revelations caused her to reflect on her own circumstances.

Miss Wass described Harris as having a "side to him" which meant he was sexually attracted to young girls.

"The prosecution doesn't for a moment suggest there is not a good, talented and kind side to Mr Harris," she said.

"But concealed behind this charming and amicable children's entertainer lay a man who exploited the very children who were drawn to him.

"His fame and reputation meant no one suspected or challenged his behaviour."

None of the alleged victims - who were aged between seven or eight and 19 - knew each other.

The court heard about one 'victim' who was 11 or 12 in 1969 when the indecent assault allegedly took place in Australia.

The woman claims Harris said "Come here, I want to be the first one to give you a tongue kiss" before grabbing her and sticking his tongue in her mouth.

Another woman who came forward was eight when, she claims, Harris touched her inappropriately after she asked him for an autograph in a community centre packed with children.

Harris denies all 12 charges against him. The trial continues.

http://news.sky.com/story/1258248/rolf-harris-letter-i-am-sickened-by-myself


The letter he sent to the father of one of the victims:

Rolf Harris sent a letter to an alleged victim's father in March 1997 admitting sexual relations but denying 'rape'. Here is what he wrote:

"Please forgive me for not writing sooner. You said in your letter to me that you never wanted to see me or hear from me again, but now [alleged victim] says it's alright to write. Since that trip up to Norfolk, I have been in a state of object (sic) self-loathing. How we delude ourselves. I fondly imagined that everything that had taken place had progressed from a feeling of love and friendship - there was no rape, no physical forcing, brutality or beating that took place.

"When I came to Norfolk, [alleged victim] told me that she had always been terrified of me and went along with everything that I did out of fear of me. I said 'Why did you never just say no?' And [alleged victim] said how could she say no to the great television star Rolf Harris. Until she told me that, I had no idea that she was scared of me. She laughs in a bitter way and says I must have known that she has always been scared of me. I honestly didn't know. [Alleged victim] keeps saying that this has all been going on since she was thirteen. She's told you that and you were justly horrified, and she keeps reiterating that to me no matter what I said to the contrary. She says admiring her and telling her she looked lovely in her bathing suit was just the same as physically molesting her. I didn't know. Nothing took place in a physical way until we had moved to Highlands. I think about 1983 or 84 was the first time. I can pinpoint a date was 1986, because I remember I was in pantomime at Richmond.

"When I see the misery I have caused [alleged victim] I am sickened by myself. You can't go back and change things that you have done in this life - I wish to God I could. When I came to Norfolk, I spent that time with [alleged victim] and realised the enormity of what I had done to [alleged victim] and how I had affected her whole life. I begged her for forgiveness and she said 'I forgive you'. Whether she really meant it or not, I don't know. I hope she did, but I fear she can never forgive me. I find it hard to like myself in any way, shape or form. And as I do these animal programmes, I see the unconditional love that dogs give to their owners and I wish I could start to love myself again.

"If there is any way that I could atone for what I have done I would willingly do it. If there is a way I can start to help [alleged victim] to heal herself, I would willingly do it. With your permission I'll phone you in a week to talk to you. If you hang up, I will understand, but I would like to talk to you to apologise for betraying your trust and for unwittingly so harming your darling [alleged victim]. I know that what I did was wrong but we are, all of us, fallible and oh how I deluded myself. Please forgive me, love Rolf."

It's just so shocking, amd myself along with so may others would never have thought Rolf Harris would have committed such horrible acts...extremely dossapointing and so wrong.

It looks like we were all taken in JD. So sad.

So he didn't have sex with the girl until she was 18 then?

It will be interesting to hear all the evidence.

To be quite honest, i still believe there was a whole paedo ring around that time (and still is) and some of the people who have got off lately have only done so due to lack of evidence.

Bruce Forsyth was never accused was he?
Know why?
Becaeue he never did anything.

That is shockingly awful. I never thought Rolf Harris would do that. Absolutely disgusting.

If the girl was 18, he didn't break the law though.

He says she was 18, she says she was younger, and she is not the only one he is accused of molesting. The youngest is 8.

Sassy wrote:It looks like we were all taken in JD.   So sad.

..I know Sass, one of the last people you would think capable of being a monster

And one of them only a bairn at aged 8

Truly awful.

Well this is Rolf we're talking about, so I'd rather wait to hear some proper evidence.

I'm shocked by these allegations. Rolf Harris did Rolf on a Saturday where he went round schools the UK and he did one of his shows in Sighthill school in Edinburgh an my son was in the show with all the other kids from P7.
Nothing happened there because all the kids left after the show.
He looks very frail now

Im still so shocked by this that I cant bring myself to believe it. I always thought he was a lovely man and
when he came to our Uni he was wonderful nothing even slighly off or inapropriate .

For what it's worth(and I hate predators) ..I believe he is genuinely ashamed, disgusted and sorry , I don't say that about many who commit such acts.

Joy Division wrote:It's just so shocking, amd myself along with so may others would never have thought Rolf Harris would have committed such horrible acts...extremely dossapointing and so wrong.

It is rather shocking. Rolf was always the cheery chappie with the big shaky boardy thing singing about two little boys and tying stuff down. It now takes on a whole more sinister feel and all that heavy breathing he used to do over his artwork and toffee buttons now seems revolting.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Joy Division wrote:It's just so shocking, amd myself along with so may others would never have thought Rolf Harris would have committed such horrible acts...extremely dossapointing and so wrong.

It is rather shocking.  Rolf was always the  cheery chappie with the big shaky boardy thing singing about two little boys and tying stuff down.   It now takes on a whole  more sinister feel and all that heavy breathing he used to do over his artwork and toffee buttons now seems revolting.  

I remember the funny breathing and board , I remember he had a song, but I never paid attention to the words.

Joy Division wrote:For what it's worth(and I hate predators) ..I believe he is genuinely ashamed, disgusted and sorry , I don't say that about many who commit such acts.

Yeah cos that makes it ok

eddie wrote:

Joy Division wrote:For what it's worth(and I hate predators) ..I believe he is genuinely ashamed, disgusted and sorry , I don't say that about many who commit such acts.

Yeah cos that makes it ok

I never said that makes it ok, it will never be ' ok' in my eyes.

Your very selective as to who you say things like that to Eddie, yet try to pass of racism as something else, something lesser or someone's ' right' to be a racist ... or stay silent when certain people defend the like of Jimmy Savile.

Rolf Harris crouched on all fours and barked like a dog before groping a teenage waitress, a court has heard.

A woman who says she was molested by the entertainer when she was 13 or 14 years old told a jury she was working as a waitress at It's A Celebrity Knockout when she was asked to investigate a "barking dog noise".

The woman, who is 52 and cannot be named, said she went outside at the event - held in Cambridge in 1975 - and saw Harris on all fours barking at a dog.

She said she was "slightly awestruck" to see Harris and he came up to her and put "his left hand on my left shoulder".

The witness said: "I couldn't believe what was going on, this famous person was putting his arm around me.

"I was nervous then he moved and went up and down my back, over my bottom. It happened quite a few times. It was uncomfortable.

"I was too young to understand. It was like groping. Very firm. He squeezed it a few times."

The woman added: "I was completely frozen. I knew it was wrong. I didn't move. I was extremely embarrassed. He was not the slightest embarrassed."

She added she went to the police after the Savile revelations and after Harris' name emerged because "it happened to me and it would help back up someone else."

http://news.sky.com/story/1262097/rolf-harris-barked-before-groping-teenager

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh, that's very disturbing sass..I'm still very surprised at Rolf, I liked the guy, as did many,

Some people seem to be forgetting that it's the adult who is supposed to be more responsible and not take advantage of minors...

In fact, some on here are even trying to turn it around on the minors.

Rolf Harris "aggressively and forcefully" groped a girl of seven or eight, twice putting his hand between her legs after she had queued for his autograph, a court has heard.

The alleged victim, now in her early 50s, said the assault happened after she went to see the entertainer perform his pop hit Two Little Boys at a community centre in the late 1960s.

The assault changed her life, she said, choking back tears: "I wasn't the same child."

The alleged victim said she encountered Harris in Portsmouth somewhere around her eighth birthday. After watching him sing, she queued for his autograph. Harris crouched down and signed his name, she said, leaning closely towards her.

Then, she said, she felt Harris touch her: "He was looking at me, smiling, and I was smiling back, excited, and out of nowhere his hand came down my back and between my legs."

Answering questions from Sasha Wass QC, prosecuting, the woman said she initially did not know if the act was deliberate: "I couldn't process it. Something like that had never happened to me before. He seemed such a nice man I thought it might have been an accident."

Then, she said, Harris touched her again: "More or less instantly the hand was back … straight between my legs, quite aggressively and forcefully, and it didn't matter if it was going to hurt me. It was quite aggressive. I knew then it wasn't an accident."

Asked by Wass how she felt at that moment, the woman said: "Scared, I think I went into some sort of moment where you are out of your body and thinking, 'Whoa, I need to get away.'"

With a shaking voice, the woman said she then backed away. "I wanted to scream out, 'What are you doing?', but it didn't come out."

She added: "I didn't know how to put it into words. He scared me because he was looking at me all the time. His eyes were fixed."

Harris, she added, was meanwhile "carrying on as if nothing had happened", still signing autographs.

The woman said later told her husband and children: "Whenever Rolf Harris was on the telly I couldn't watch it. I'd have to turn it off. People would ask why and I'd tell them why."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/15/rolf-harris-trial-eight-year-old-autograph-signing

Reading that does make one feel very uncomfortable, so we can only imagine how she felt being that bairn at the time..

Amd we would still be nowhere near her true feelings.

That's three accusers so far, there are 12 counts against him.

I find it utterly depressing.Max Clifford showed no remorse at all,he even mocked the entire trial,making fun of the camera men etc and smiling for the press like it was a film premiere.

At least Rolf is showing respect for the process but I have a feeling he will be found guilty of some counts.

Depressing is the right word. I am so shocked and outraged at Rolf Harris!

What happened to innocent until proved guilty?

Rolf is very old.If he is found guilty of any counts he is likely to die in prison.

What a horrible case,for the victims and for his family who had no idea what was going on.

In these historic cases its very difficult to prove anything as its just a ladies word against the accused.Clifford must of been very transparently guilty and I venture,considering his conduct, a bit unstable.

The case in general just makes me feel sad.

FluffyBunny wrote:Rolf is very old.If he is found guilty of any counts he is likely to die in prison.

What a horrible case,for the victims and for his family who had no idea what was going on.

In these historic cases its very difficult to prove anything as its just a ladies word against the accused.Clifford must of been very transparently guilty and I venture,considering his conduct, a bit unstable.

The case in general just makes me feel sad.

Don't know if you are right about them not knowing it was going on.

The first witness, who said she was assaulted while in the same room as his daughter, said that when the witness wasn't talking to her father, Bindi said, why have you got a down on my Dad, has he assaulted you?

I think they maybe did have an idea, but stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away.

Sassy wrote:

FluffyBunny wrote:Rolf is very old.If he is found guilty of any counts he is likely to die in prison.

What a horrible case,for the victims and for his family who had no idea what was going on.

In these historic cases its very difficult to prove anything as its just a ladies word against the accused.Clifford must of been very transparently guilty and I venture,considering his conduct, a bit unstable.

The case in general just makes me feel sad.

Don't know if you are right about them not knowing it was going on.

The first witness, who said she was assaulted while in the same room as his daughter, said that when the witness wasn't talking to her father, Bindi said, why have you got a down on my Dad, has he assaulted you?

I think they maybe did have an idea, but stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away.

Oh Gosh.

  

But will the daughter confirm saying such a thing? Other wise it's back to the he said she said testimony. That being said I think the case is a bit stronger than that personally but for a jury to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt it is so difficult in cases like this with no forensics etc.

eddie wrote:

Joy Division wrote:For what it's worth(and I hate predators) ..I believe he is genuinely ashamed, disgusted and sorry , I don't say that about many who commit such acts.

Yeah cos that makes it ok

i bet the queen is sick that he hosted her Jubilee last year