William Merritt And The Rolf Harris Witch-Hunt (2)

That being said, this was important because Rosher’s was the only allegation made of Rolf interfering with a prepubescent girl, which meant he was no longer legally a convicted paedophile, although that hasn’t stopped the media claiming he still is.

Tonya Lee is an Australian national. As a teenager she had aspirations to become a dancer or some such, and of course it was Rolf’s fault that she didn’t.  In spite of the evidence uncovered by Merritt and his team, in particular the logistics of these sexual assaults which were supposed to have been perpetrated in a South London public house, the Court Of Appeal sided with the jury.

Merritt doesn’t discuss Rolf’s principal accuser in any detail but she was the root cause of all his troubles and was clearly a woman scorned. Although only his occasional mistress, she was enraged when she found out he had a second mistress, one he had as good as invited into his home. The truth about their sexual liaisons came out a decade and a half before the trial when Rolf sent a handwritten letter of apology to her parents. If he hadn’t done this and had simply denied everything, he would probably never have been charged with anything even if accused. Who says honesty is its own reward?

Although Merritt was unable to overturn any other convictions, he was able to prevent further damage. The so-called detectives who handle such cases and the imbeciles of the Clown Prosecution Service decided they wanted to keep Rolf behind bars until he died. They succeeded with the publicist Max Clifford who was given an eight year sentence two months before Rolf. He died at Littlehey Prison on December 7, 2017 aged 74. The CPS used the same dirty tricks against him as they had against Rolf.

Rolf would face two further trials which resulted in a combination of acquittals and juries failing to agree. The barrister instructed for both trials was Stephen Vullo QC who understands how these witch-hunts operate. Merritt was very critical of Rolf’s first legal team but has nothing but praise for Vullo.

Rolf wasn’t charged with sexually assaulting all his accusers, some were called as evidence of bad character. Bad character evidence is a relatively new development in English law, and a terrible one. In Rolf’s case it was extraordinary because rather than having a bad character he had an exemplary one. One of the bad character witnesses against Rolf was a woman who claimed he’d groped her in Malta in the 1970s. How does anyone refute a claim like that. William Merritt did! Although that allegation related to the first trial, it does no harm to set the record straight.

The sickest allegation brought against Rolf was the claim he had groped a blind, disabled woman. This proved an embarrassment because once again Team Merritt was able to show the incident as the non-victim recounted it could not have happened.

One of the many things Merritt found disturbing about this entire witch-hunt was the sloppiness and at times outright dishonesty of the police.  

Another point to note is that investigations of this nature don’t come cheap; few accused men (and on occasion women) can afford to hire a small team of researchers to trawl through archives, knock on doors, and at times travel to other countries. One person who could was the American entertainer Bill Cosby; another was the Australian soap star who shares Rolf’s initials, Robert Hughes, who like Rolf had his career and reputation trashed as well as losing his freedom.

Allegations of an historical nature are easy to make and almost impossible to refute, and even if they can be, there are seldom any consequences for gratuitously false accusers, of whom there are many. William Merritt is well aware of this. If you are a lawyer or have an interest in this subject, read his book. And pray you never need his services. 

Back To Part 1.