Rolf Harris to face retrial after jury failed to reach verdicts in sex offences trial
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Veteran entertainer Rolf Harris is to face a retrial over three sex offence charges and face one new count.
Last week a jury found the 86-year-old Australian not guilty of three sex crimes following a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court.
But the jury failed to reach verdicts on another four charges.
Harris, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie, appeared via video-link for today's hearing.
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had decided to seek a retrial following "careful consideration" after the jury was discharged last week.
(Photo: Rex)
He added: "This decision was taken after consideration of all the matters set out in our legal guidance on seeking retrials when a jury has failed to agree on a verdict.
"The CPS reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against Rolf Harris remain active and that he has a right to a fair trial.
"It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings."
Harris showed no emotion last week as the jury at his latest trial cleared him of groping a blind woman, a 12-year-old autograph hunter and a BBC worker in 2002.
They failed to reach verdicts on charges relating to four other alleged victims.
(Photo: Julia Quenzler / SWNS.com)
Harris did not give evidence, but his barrister said they were “false victims” who were hunting for compensation from his £11m fortune.
He was cleared of telling a 12-year-old autograph hunter “let’s give you a little cuddle” before groping her as her mother stood nearby outside Radio Victory in Portsmouth in 1977.
The Australian was also cleared of “slobbering” over a blind woman at Moorfields Eye Hospital in the 1970s.
(Photo: Rex Features)
Jurors found him not guilty of pinning a BBC worker against a wall and grabbing her breasts at a party at BBC Television Centre in 2002.
The panel took just under a week to come to its verdicts.
Harris is still in jail after a 2014 trial saw him convicted of 12 sex offences against four female victims, one as young as seven or eight.
His defence team claimed the jury in the first trial “got it wrong” and that the media coverage “without doubt made him vulnerable to people making accusations against him”.