Rolf Harris should not be accused of lying, BBC presenter says

Former Crimewatch presenter Sue Cook has told a court that Rolf Harris should not be accused of lying after forgetting a game show appearance in the 1970s because she cannot recall being in the programme either.

The 65-year-old writer and broadcaster, who appeared in the Star Games series two or three times, said celebrities were “bussed in” to a recreation area, and the city or town was “immaterial”.

She took to Twitter on Monday after seeing coverage of Harris’s indecent assault trial on Sky News.

Harris had told the jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court that he had never been to Cambridge until four years ago, but it later emerged that he had appeared in a Star Games show in the city in 1978.

One alleged victim claimed that the entertainer had grabbed her bottom when she was waitressing at an event there in 1975, although prosecutors say she may have got the date wrong.

Ms Cook said: “I said to my husband ‘Gosh, that’s not fair — I wouldn’t have remembered it was Cambridge either’.

“I don’t think he can be accused of lying because I can’t remember it. I was a participant in that game show but I wouldn’t have known it was Cambridge either.”

She said she did not remember Harris having been in the same episode as her, and told the jury that, during her four decades in broadcasting, she had forgotten “loads” of events she had been to.

The BBC Radio 4 presenter said that, on one occasion, her mother-in-law gave her a DVD of an event at the Royal Opera House, and she assumed she had confused her with Sue Lawley.

She told the court: “To my amazement it was me hosting a gala event at the Royal Opera House.

“I have no memory whatsoever of doing it.”

In cross-examination by Sasha Wass QC, she admitted that she would not “swear blind” under oath that she had not been somewhere for work.

Cook said she had appeared on the show three times, in episodes filmed in May 1979.

Harris is standing trial for 12 counts of indecent assault on four women between 1968 and 1986, all of which he denies.

Earlier, the court heard from Harris’s former tour manager, Ken Jeacle, who said women fans would “rush up” to the performer and put their arms around him.

He would have to “extract” the star from those situations to avoid fans getting too close, the court heard.

Speaking via video-link from Australia, Mr Jeacle said: “Rolf Harris, as I observed, was a gentleman who was a very affectionate, warm, outgoing personality. His tendency to be demonstrative with outward affection is constant.

“He has absolutely no problem whatsoever with giving somebody a warm embrace, he’s done it to me a million times.

“His behaviour to other people has always been as a gentleman, as somebody whom I have been proud to be in the company of, and never at any time have I even perceived any sort of attitude or behaviour of any type which could be in any way questionable.”

He said that in the 1990s Harris told him “he didn’t feel as free and as joyful” performing on stage, and he and his wife Alwen had both been ill, so his tours of South East Asia and Australia ended, with an 11-date reprisal in 2008 at Sydney Opera House.

In cross-examination, he said claims that Harris had two extra-marital affairs were not his business.

“Not only can I not speak (about it), I will not speak of that because it’s none of my concern what Rolf Harris’s private life was. I never even asked about it.”

The defence then closed their case, and a brief series of agreed facts about Harris’s appearance on Star Games was read to the jury.

PA