Rolf Harris could walk free in months after being cleared of sex assault charges

Cleared: Rolf Harris
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Disgraced TV entertainer Rolf Harris could be free from prison in five months after he was cleared of three sex offences during his showbiz career.

The 86-year-old Australian was locked up for five years and nine months in 2014 after a jury found him guilty of 12 counts of historic sexual abuse.

The trial led to a wave of new complaints that the star had groped and molested young girls and women in "brazen" attacks stretching from the 1970s to present day.

Harris did not give evidence during his second trial at Southwark crown court, claiming instead that the women accusing him had invented their attacks in a bid for compensation.

He further claimed the jury in the first trial had "got it wrong" by finding him guilty.

At court on Wednesday, Harris was found not guilty of groping a woman at a BBC wrap party in 2004 and molesting a teenage girl when she was autograph hunting outside a radio station in Portsmouth.

He was also acquitted of grabbing the breasts of a disabled and blind woman during a visit to Moorfield Eye Hospital in 1977, after she claimed Harris had "slobbered" over her and told her she was "good-looking"

The former TV star of Animal Hospital and Rolf's Cartoon Club offered no emotion as the not guilty verdicts were delivered.

Rolf Harris at court (Elizabeth Cook/PA )
Elizabeth Cook/PA

The jury failed to decide on four more charges of indecent assault after more than 26 hours locked in discussions, and Judge Alistair McCreath QC discharged them, saying it would be "oppressive" to make them deliberate further.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC will return to court in a week's time to say whether Harris will face a retrial.

The jury could not decide on claims Harris rubbed the back of a 19-year-old singer while preparing for a stint at Glastonbury in 2002, put his hand up the skirt of a 14-year-old girl at a youth music festival, and groped a teenage girl after filming an appearance on Star Games in Cambridge in 1973.

Harris is also accused of asking a 13-year-old girl: “Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?” before groping her at a recording of Saturday Superstore in 1983.

At his first trial, brought under the Met's Operation Yewtree probe, Harris was found guilty of 12 indecent assaults in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

One of the victims was a childhood friend of his daughter's, and another was an autograph hunter aged just seven.

Harris, dubbed a "Jekyll and Hyde" character, was supported throughout the case by wife Alwen and his daughter Bindi, through days of lurid revelations about his perverted overtures to girls.

However his wife and daughter stayed away from the second trial, while the imprisoned star watched proceedings through videolink from HMP Stafford.

He is due to be freed on July 25, halfway through his prison term, when he will be released on licence.

Harris, formerly of Bray in Berkshire, denied all the charges against him.

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