For the first time, Rolf Harris’ daughter’s friend has spoken out about the “traumatic and prolonged sexual abuse” she was subjected to at the hands of the TV star.
Known as Victim A in court, seven of Harris’ 12 charges related to crimes that occurred when she was between the ages of 13 to 19.
In ITVX’s new documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight, the girl in question reveals she kept quiet about the abuse for years. This is because of his fame and because she was a childhood friend of Rolf’s daughter Bindi.
***Warning: contains distressing details of abuse***
Did Rolf Harris abuse his daughter’s friend?
The two-part documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight tells the story of his decades-long grooming of his daughter Bindi’s childhood friend.
In exclusive new testimony, she describes how Rolf abused her from the age of 13 until adulthood. The girl in question talks to the filmmakers via her psychotherapist Chip Somers. She is known as Victim A for legal reasons.
The unidentified female has given Chip Somers permission to tell her story. And the psychotherapist admits the young girl had turned to alcohol to cope with the abuse.
He says on her behalf: “She started to experience innocent physical contact… But Rolf pushed boundaries a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further every time she and Rolf were on their own.
“And then there is a specific point when it changed completely from anything that could be perceived as being innocent. [It turned] into a very overt sexual insertion into her vagina, of a finger, and that changes the game completely.”
Chip adds: “It then gradually got more intimate. There was a request for masturbation. There was a request for oral sex. These things were happening both in his home, and in her home. Where opportunity presented itself, becoming more intense, more frequent.”
Rolf Harris told victim ‘this is our little secret’
As their relationship became more intimate, Chip Somers says that Rolf Harris was clear in his message to his daughter’s friend, who was 35 years his junior.
He reveals: “Rolf also quite clearly told her, ‘This is something that you cannot talk about. Do not tell anybody about this. This is our little secret. I am a powerful person. I have money, so tread carefully.'”
Many women made allegations against public figures after ITV’s 2012 documentary The Other Side of Jimmy Savile. And Victim A was one of them, claiming Rolf Harris abused her.
She went on to testify against him during his very public trial in 2014. The jury also heard that one of the victims was a young autograph hunter.
In July 2014, a judge sentenced Rolf Harris to five years and nine months in prison. He was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault on four female victims during the 1970s and 1980s. He was 84 at the time.
Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said he had taken advantage of his celebrity status and shown “no remorse”.
He was released on licence in 2017, after serving nearly three years at HM Prison Stafford.
Was Rolf Harris convicted of abusing his daughter’s friend?
Australian entertainer Rolf Harris had a prolonged relationship with his daughter’s friend jurors were told during his trial.
Under cross-examination, she denied consenting to a series of sexual encounters with Rolf Harris. She alleged that she was indecently assaulted by him over a number of years. She claimed the abuse began on a holiday in the late 1970s when she was 13.
Victim A eventually told her parents she had been touched inappropriately by Rolf Harris when they confronted her about her drinking habit, the court heard.
Shortly after, she told Bindi that she had been groped by her father. Bindi stood by her father throughout his trial.
The witness said she had been abused by Rolf Harris over 16 years. She added: “I didn’t have a level of resistance. I was in an alcohol-induced state whenever he was around and I just went along with it. I was scared of him.”
Harris denied all charges. However, a judge subsequently sentenced him to five years and nine months in prison on 12 counts of indecent assault on four female victims during the 1970s and 1980s.
Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight on ITVX
Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight is a two-part documentary which is available to watch on ITVX from Thursday, May 18, 2023.
In a statement, ITVX says: “The two-part documentary tells the extraordinary truth behind the rise and fall of former national treasure Rolf Harris. It uses rare archive and exclusive testimony from those closest to the trial.
“Harris was loved and trusted as ‘the nation’s favourite uncle’. But behind closed doors he had been betraying his family and the British public that had grown up with him by sexually assaulting children and young women for years.”
Over a decade on from his arrest, Rolf Harris’ accusers tell the story of how his alleged assaults impacted on them. They also describe the pressures that finally forced them to come forward to testify against him in court.
The documentary includes exclusive new testimony from one of Rolf Harris’ youngest known victims, known as Victim A.
Meanwhile, Australian make-up artist Suzi Dent claims Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her. She says the abuse occurred when she worked on a programme he appeared on in 1985.
The documentary also interviews Karen Gardner, who claims Rolf abused her “in plain sight” at a public event.
With an elderly Rolf Harris now out of jail and back at home, and new allegations of abuse surfacing in Australia, the series asks important questions about how the criminal justice system deals with historical cases of sexual abuse. Do his accusers feel that they’ve got justice?
Read more: Former child entertainer and convicted paedophile Rolf Harris ‘led a toxic double-life’
Rolf Harris: Hiding In Plain Sight streams from Thursday, May 18, on ITVX.
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