Giving evidence at his trial on 12 counts of indecent assault against four girls and young women between 1968 and 1986 in London’s Southwark Central Court, Harris, now 84, said yesterday that the relationship with girl was consensual and lasted more than a decade but only began when she was an 18-year-old woman.
His accuser, who cannot be named, was a childhood friend of his daughter Bindi and gave evidence at the trial two weeks ago that he indecently assaulted her during a trip to Hawaii 24 years ago and that the abuse continued until she was 29.
Harris’ defence counsel asked him if an allegation that he assaulted the girl when she stepped out of the shower during the trip was true. “No,” he replied, “didn’t happen.”
The defence counsel also referred to the alleged victim’s evidence that he had hugged her and she found it “creepy”. He replied that he had hugged her. “I am a very touchy-feely person,” he told the court. “I would normally hug anybody.”
He further denied assaulting the girl on the beach in Hawaii when he wrapped a towel around her as she came out of the ocean.
Harris claimed that their sexual relationship began at her initiation after he took her a cup of tea when she was staying at his house some time during 1983, when the girl was 18.
“It seemed she was being flirtatious with me and it was a flattering thing to have this young lady suddenly showing an interest in me,” Harris said. “She seemed to be suddenly interested in me in a completely different way” He said his heart was “thumping like mad” when she through back her duvet and he touched her leg before he left the room.
Harris, then 53, said it was embarrassing to describe the incident because he “was a married man, she was a younger woman. I shouldn’t be doing it”.
The next time she visited his house, he took her another cup of tea. “She seemed very, very flirtatious, coquettish, looking at me with some sort of sexual chemistry,” Harris said. It was then that he kissed her and their sexual relationship began.
“She seemed to be welcoming the whole business and enjoying it,” he said.
Harris will face cross examination by the prosecution when he returns to the witness box.
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