Entertainer Rolf Harris arrives with his wife Alwen Hughes at the Southwark Crown Court in London yesterday.
Entertainer Rolf Harris has agreed that the fact he conducted a long-running secret affair with a young friend of his daughter 35 years his junior shows that he has a darker side beneath his amiable showbusiness exterior.
Beginning his prosecution cross-examination at Southwark crown court in London, Harris yesterday also conceded that the way he kept the relationship, which began when the woman was 18, hidden from everyone indicated he was good at hiding this darker aspect of his character.
Sasha Wass QC, for the prosecution, began by telling Harris that his ability as an entertainer was in no doubt, and his singing and impressions of a wobble board and didgeridoo during Tuesday’s first day of evidence had “delighted us to your many talents as an artiste”.
Wass continued: “But this case, as you know, is not a talent show. This case is about whether, under your friendly and loveable exterior, there is a darker side lurking. You know that, don’t you?”
She pressed Harris on whether his private and public faces were different. He replied: “I suppose so.”
Wass asked Harris about the fact he kept the relationship, which he says lasted 11 years, secret from his wife and family for so long. She asked: “You are pretty good, Harris, aren’t you, at disguising that dark side of your character?”
He replied: “Yes.” The woman, a friend of Harris’s daughter, Bindi, has told the court the Australian-born entertainer, now 84, sexually abused her from the age of 13, and that their sexual contact continued intermittently until she was 29. Harris insists the first sexual contact was at 18, beginning when she was staying at his family house. Wass asked Harris if the truth was that the case was about child abuse and grooming. He replied: “That’s your case.”
Questioned about a time in the 1990s when the alleged victim’s family confronted him over the alleged abuse, Wass put it to Harris that it never occurred to him he could face police action over accusations he had groped a girl of 13. “I didn’t think of that at the time, no,” he replied.