Rolf Harris ‘molested while his daughter slept’

ROLF Harris performed oral sex on an alleged victim while his daughter Bindi was asleep in the same room, a court has heard.

AUSTRALIAN entertainer Rolf Harris was so uninhibited he performed oral sex on an alleged victim while his daughter Bindi was asleep in the same room.

In evidence given in Southwark Crown Court on day three of Harris’s trial, the woman, now aged 49, described how she was so terrified of Harris she would pretend to be asleep during sleepovers at the Harris house at Bray, Berkshire.

On two occasions when Harris was assaulting her by performing oral sex, she told the court she would pretend to orgasm to cut short the attacks.

Harris, 84, has denied all 12 counts of indecent assault, seven of which relate to this complainant, who claims she was first ­assaulted when 13 and the abuse continued until she was 29.

The woman told the court she believed Harris got a thrill out of assaulting her while his daughter was asleep close by at a time when she was 15.

Prosecutor Sasha Wass asked: “Was Mr Harris in any way inhibited by the fact his daughter was very close? ’’

She responded: “I think he got a thrill out of it. By the look on his face, he was looking over at Bindi and then just carried on.’’

On another occasion Harris came to the bedroom with a cup of tea, pulled down his pants and fondled himself, pulling her head towards his penis.

“I was in Bray in bed again and he came and he got his penis out, it was very small, very small and then he started to fondle himself,’’ she said.

The witness gave her evidence from behind a screen. She described Harris mumbling “you are lovely’’ as she recalled how he had first molested her underneath a towel, but she said he would be largely uncommunicative except for moaning or saying her name during further alleged attacks.

Harris would also take photographs of her, including one when she was asleep in a flesh coloured bikini and told the woman the outfit had “turned him on’’.

The woman has told the court she was just 13 on her first trip away from home when Harris would spit on two fingers and put his fingers inside her vagina.

The woman said her parents had thought Harris, who was a prime time television star in the UK at the time, was a nice person, although she noted: “He never greeted our dog.’’

She said she had not thought to tell anyone about what had ­occurred because it “would cause chaos’’.

She told the court Harris ­assaulted her twice in Hawaii at an up-market hotel, twice in Australia when the family was staying with Harris’s parents and further occasions back in the UK, including in her bedroom.

One of the alleged assaults happened when the Harris family came over to exchange Christmas gifts. She also gave evidence about being assaulted when she was 19 in the pool at Harris’s residence immediately after her mother and the entertainer’s wife Alwen had left the pool and gone into the sitting room.

The alleged assaults took only a minute or so, the witness said.

The witness said she was so terrified of Harris after the holiday that she started to drink a “shedload’’ of gin to calm her ­anxiety.