Harris, now 84, stands accused of 12 counts of indecent assault between 1968 and 1986 and is being tried in London’s Southwark Crown Court.
Harris, who was drawing cartoons and shaking hands with people when the girl and her mother arrived at a promotional event in an Australian shop in 1991, later approached the girl, according to video-link testimony heard yesterday.
The girl, now a woman and a mother-of-five, told her mother about the incident and called Harris “a dirty old man”. They did not report it to authorities because they chose not to make a fuss.
“He put his right hand on my left breast and through my shirt,” the woman, who cannot be named, told the court.
“I had a shirt that was gathered and did not have buttons on the front. He put his other hand on my right buttock cheek. His hand was over my bra but through my shirt. It was very deliberate. I stepped back and he laughed.”
She said that she remembers backing away from Harris and escaping into the crowd. “I was in shock and I stayed away from him,” she said. The girl was later asked if she wishes to complete a drawing with Harris but she declined, not wishing to go near him again.
The court also heard testimony from the girl’s mother who said that Harris rubbed his groin against her buttocks as he posed behind her for a photograph. “He was very close to me,” she said. “He was close enough to be rubbing himself against my buttocks. I do not consider that it happened to me – it was something that was done to me.”
She recalled that stamped on his foot and called him “a disgusting creature” at which the entertainer’s “friendly and smiling” expression changed to “almost a sneer”.
The allegations are not the subject of charges against Harris but were instead presented to the court as evidence of his character and his alleged long history of groping women and young girls.
The court also heard testimony from Australian Tonya Lee, now 43, who alleged that Harris touched her when her acting group travelled from Sydney to the United Kingdom in 1986.
Lee told the court that after the alleged assault she developed the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, for which she blames Harris.
The hearing continues today.
