Rolf Harris was a BBC star, an entertainer who provided innocent amusement for children. That is how he came across to me and millions more. Then it went wrong. He was accused of being a Paedophile pervert, then charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to five years nine months.
Was he guilty? Sean Gabb comments on the quality of the evidence against him at #Rolf Harris – Beyond Reasonable Doubt? A lot of decades old recollections were unreliable or proven to be wrong. Now, in January 2017 he is facing further charges. He isn't going to find it easy to beat them.
Someone more worldly says he was obviously guilty; that his song about Two Little Boys is clear evidence of intent, Wikipedia spin notwithstanding. Given subsequent charges I have to agree. The Wiki is being down right evasive. The lyrics are hidden, glossed over, ignored but see Rolf Harris And Operation Gum Tree for the facts.
Something of the sort happened with Captain Pugwash. One day it was innocent fun; the next it was gone, banished by the BBC, never to be seen again. The Wiki tells us that the Libel case regarding double entendres is an urban legend. I am not convinced.
Harris's major mistake, apart from abusing his position in the first place was giving evidence. He was a showman; he thought he could talk his way out of it. He was wrong. Proving that you are not guilty is much more difficult than leaving them to prove the opposite. If you doubt it read about Resistance to Interrogation and think about how you would cope if you found yourself a police station. The fact of being innocent is totally irrelevant.
What does the Rolf Harris case tell us about
the BBC? Just the same as their approach to
Paedophile perverts like:- The Beeb
protected Harris because the Beeb is full of
Homosexuals. He is their kind of people. Then,
it all went wrong, the truth came out. Whoops. The pay off, a big pay off
is that it has discredited the Beeb. Earlier revelations regarding tax fraud
were boring. Perversion made it big. The Beeb didn't bother to tell us about Cyril Smith,
another conspicuous
Paedophile pervert. Corruption is
the name of the game.
There has been no public breast beating
over the far more important fact that the BBC is a
Propaganda machine, a major
source of Cultural Marxism, of
Racism, a Marxist
construct. It is anti-English racism
but deeply sincere Racism none the less.
Rolf Harris ex Wiki Harris is widely known for his musical compositions "Tie
Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", which later became a Top 10 hit in Australia,
the UK, and the United States, and "Jake
the Peg". He often used unusual instruments in his performances: he
played the
didgeridoo; is credited with the invention of the
wobble board; and is associated with the
Stylophone.[5]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Harris became a popular television personality
in the UK, later presenting shows such as
Rolf's Cartoon Club and
Animal Hospital. In 2005, he painted
an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. He lived in
Bray, Berkshire, England, for more than six decades.[6] Harris's career as a popular entertainer was ended by his conviction and
imprisonment for sexual offences.[7]
In 2014, at the age of 84, he was jailed on twelve counts of
indecent assault that took place between 1968 or 1969 and 1986, on four
female victims then aged between eight and nineteen. As a result, he was
stripped of many of the honours he had been awarded during his career,
including the
OA and
CBE.[8][9][10]
Since 2014, Harris has been serving a prison sentence of five years and nine
months, at
HMP Stafford. Harris is currently on trial facing
further
charges........... Harris created one of his most famous roles in the 1960s,
Jake the Peg, but his biggest success in terms of record sales was in
1969, with his rendering of the American Civil War song "Two
Little Boys", originally written in 1902. Harris later discovered a
personal poignancy to the song, as the story bears such a resemblance to the
World War I experiences of his father Crom, and Crom's beloved younger
brother Carl who died at the age of 19 after being wounded in battle in
France two weeks before the Armistice of November 1918.[43]
"Two Little Boys" was the
Christmas Number One song in the UK charts for six weeks in 1969. It
sold over one million copies and was awarded a
gold disc.[44]
Two Little Boys ex Wiki
Rolf Harris And Operation Gum Tree ex Spectator
Captain Pugwash ex Wiki The eponymous hero – Captain Horatio Pugwash – sails the high seas in his
ship called the Black Pig, ably assisted by cabin boy Tom, pirates
Willy and Barnabas, and Master Mate. His mortal enemy is Cut-Throat Jake,
captain of the Flying Dustman........
John Ryan
successfully sued both the Sunday Correspondent and
The Guardian newspapers in 1991 for printing this legend as fact.[5]
We all hate
Paedophiles so we all hate
Rolf Harris, don't we?
Perhaps it is not so simple. Seeing that Jimmy Savile
was guilty as Hell was no problem. It is why the
BBC
protected him. Rolf Harris came across as a decent sort. The evidence against
him was decades old, children's recollections are not always right. Money had
been paid to accusers. So was he guilty beyond all reasonable doubt? I was not
convinced. Albeit he made one awful mistake; he gave evidence under
oath. The cross examination meant that he had to prove he was not guilty. He
thought he could talk his way out of it; he couldn't. He should have studied
Resistance to Interrogation.
From
http://www.libertarianview.co.uk/current-affairs/rolf-harris-beyond-reasonable-doubt Posted on
July 3, 2014 by
admin Rolf Harris has been convicted and for many that
is conclusive proof of his guilt. However, we should not forget that the British
justice system is not perfect, it can make errors, as these
high profile miscarriages of justice show. I do not know if Rolf Harris committed the crimes
he was accused of. However, I find the fact that he was convicted, based on the
evidence reported by the BBC, alarming. Let me explain why: COUNT ONE – VERDICT: GUILTY “The woman said she was aged seven or eight when she queued to get an
autograph from Harris at a community centre in Hampshire in 1968 or 1969.
When she reached the front of the queue, Harris had touched her
inappropriately with his “big hairy hands”, she told the jury. The court heard that no evidence could be found that Mr Harris had been
at the community centre. He also showed his hands to the jury and denied
they were hairy.” When they say that no evidence could be found
that Mr Harris had been at the community centre, they don’t mean a cursory
glance turned nothing up.
They searched local newspaper archives between January 1967 and May 1974,
council records and even conducted letter drops appealing for witnesses.
Nothing, not a single piece of independent evidence that he was ever there! It is hard to see how the uncorroborated
recollection of an event alleged to have happened 45 years ago,
when the witness was eight, can constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt. Consider for a moment, what you can accurately
remember from when you were eight? I am not as old as the witness but I can’t
remember the name of my best friend, my teacher, my birthday party, frankly
anything. I have a childhood scar, it must have been caused by a significant
trauma. I remember it hurt and bled a lot, but I can’t remember how it happened,
let alone where, when or who was with me at the time. Even if the victim is sincere in believing her
own recollection of events, she may simply be mistaken. Memory is not a flawless
recording device. It is very common for people to believe they remember things
that can be proven to have never happened. If you find that hard to believe
there is a very good TED Talk dealing with it
here [ Elizabeth Loftus: The fiction of memory ] and
another here
[ Scott Fraser: The problem with eyewitness testimony ]. As a principle of justice it seems absurd that
anyone can be convicted simply on the unsupported “evidence” of someone else
accusing them of a crime. Only a few days ago a trainee barrister was
convicted of
falsely accusing a former boyfriend of rape. Here is
another recent case and
another. People make false allegations, for many different reasons; to take
revenge on a former partner or in some cases for financial gain. In this case
the [ alleged ]
victim
made $1.5 Million before admitting years later that she made the whole thing
up. Making a claim against a celebrity is a heads I
win, tails I don’t lose proposition for any opportunist! If the accuser is believed they make a huge
financial windfall. If not, they still ruin their target’s reputation (no smoke
without fire) and they almost certainly won’t be charged with making a false
claim. Nobody charged the false accusers of celebrities
such as
Bill Roache, or
Dave Lee Travis or
Jimmy Tarbuck or
Jim Davidson or
Michael Le Vell or the footballers
Nile Ranger,
Christian Montano,
Ellis Harrison,
Loic Remy or another 11 innocent footballers
here. No one who wasn’t there can be sure what Rolf
Harris did or didn’t do in this case, but I know that there is
an £11 million incentive for people to make up accusations and without any
corroborating evidence there has to be a reasonable doubt in favour of the
accused. COUNT TWO – VERDICT: GUILTY Another woman said she had been working as a waitress, at the age of 13
or 14, at a charity event in Cambridge in 1975 when Harris had put his arm
around her shoulder. “To start, it was a very nervous but a good feeling,” she said. “However
his hand then moved and his hand went up and down my back and his hand went
over my bottom and it was very firm.” Again all we have is uncorroborated allegations. I know that Rolf Harris said that he had never
been to Cambridge and that this was shown to be a false statement,
for many this was the silver bullet that proved his guilt. But, failures of
memory are not proof of indecent assault! Remember, Rolf Harris is 84 years old and has
been in show business for 60+years. He has been all over the country for various
events and it is not at all unreasonable for an 84 year old man to forget having
been somewhere 40 years previously. Indeed Crime Watch presenter
Sue Cook admitted she had forgotten being in the same show If you think it through it would make no sense
for Rolf Harris to deliberately lie about this. Then there is the seldom mentioned fact that the
show actually took place in 1978, three years after the alleged indecent
assault incident. This would make the alleged victim 16 or 17 not
the child of 13 claimed. If the accuser cannot remember whether she was a child
of 13 or a teenager of 17, can we really ruin a man solely on the strength of
her memory? She also got the location wrong: “The
alleged victim had suggested the event had taken place on Parker’s Piece, a
large green in the centre of Cambridge.” The show was
actually filmed on Jesus Green a much larger, wooded park about a 6 minute
drive north. So the accuser couldn’t remember when it happened
(or how old she was), she couldn’t remember where it happened and yet the jury
found her 36 year old memory of the indecent assault to be evidence beyond a
reasonable doubt! When we talk about the indecent assault we are
not talking about something so traumatic, like rape, that it would
understandably be burned into her memory. We are talking about a 17 year old
having her bottom touched in the 1970′s, a time where bottom pinching was
considered mainstream enough for popular TV shows such as
Are
You Being Served and on billboards for respectable
brands such as Fiat [ or even
Silvio Berlusconi, the lecher envied by millions - Editor ]. Again, nobody who wasn’t there can be sure what
Rolf Harris did or didn’t do in this case, but I know that there is
an £11 million incentive for people to make up accusations and without any corroborating evidence there has to
be a reasonable doubt in favour of the accused. I will come back to counts 3-9, but first lets
deal with: COUNTS 10 TO 12 – VERDICTS: GUILTY Tonya Lee was a 15-year-old on a theatre trip from Australia to the UK
when, she said, the entertainer fondled her. Ms Lee has waived the right to anonymity granted to alleged victims of
sexual offences. The three charges relate to one day in May 1986. She said he asked her to sit on his lap before moving his hand up her leg
and assaulting her. “He was moving back and forth rubbing against me,” she said. “It was very
subtle, it wasn’t big movements.” The jury heard that Harris had then patted her on the thigh and moved his
hand upwards. She said she had “started to panic” and rushed to the toilet. When she came out, she said, Harris was waiting for her and gave her “a
big bear hug” before putting his hand down her top and then down her skirt. Harris denied ever meeting Ms Lee. It was also revealed that she had sold her story for £33,000 to an
Australian TV station and a magazine. She said accepting the money had been
a “huge mistake”. Here we have the uncorroborated accusation of a
woman who has already cashed in, to the tune of £33,000! She also claimed in her evidence that the sexual
assault caused her to lose six kilos in weight during the six week theatre tour.
It was then proven in court that the alleged incident could only have taken
place in the final week of the tour! As the defence QC pointed out: “Are you really saying between this alleged
incident on May 30 and six days later that you lost all that weight….in six
days? You have blamed the loss of weight and inability to eat upon Rolf Harris.” At best it appears that the witness has a
confused recollection of events, not surprising after 28 years, at worst she was
simply lying for financial gain. Again, we don’t know what Rolf Harris did or didn’t do
in this case, but I know that there is
an £11 million incentive for people to make up accusations and without any
corroborating evidence there has to be a reasonable doubt in favour of the
accused. The remaining allegations concern the childhood
friend of Rolf Harris’ daughter Bindi. COUNTS THREE TO NINE – VERDICTS: GUILTY Seven of the 12 charges related to a childhood friend of Harris’s
daughter Bindi. Six charges related to alleged abuse when she was aged
between 13 and 15, and the seventh to when she was 19. The court heard that the abuse began when she had been on holiday with
the Harris family at the age of 13. Later, the woman said Harris had
performed a sex act on her at the Harris family home, with Bindi asleep in
the same room. Further assaults took place at the Harris home and in her bedroom at her
own home while her parents were downstairs, she said. The convicted celebrity admitted having a sexual relationship with the
woman – but stressed that it had been consensual and had begun after she had
turned 18. However, the relationship had “ended in a very acrimonious way,” he said. The court was shown a letter Harris sent to the woman’s father in 1997,
after the end of the relationship. The letter said: “I fondly imagined that everything that had taken place
had progressed from a feeling of love and friendship – there was no rape, no
physical forcing, brutality or beating that took place.” Here we do have actual evidence, of sexual
activity between an older man and a much younger woman. Rolf Harris admits to having a sexual
relationship with her when she was 18 years old. She is now 49, so at the time
Rolf Harris would have been 53, an age gap of 35 years. To many of us such a large age gap seems
unnatural, but it is certainly not unusual for famous older men to have
relationships with younger women: 73 year old Patrick Stewart Recently married
Sunny Ozell,
38 years his junior Michael Douglas is 25 years older than Katherine Zeta
Jones. James Woods has
a girlfriend 46 years his junior, Alec Baldwin’s wife is
26 years younger, Doug Hutchinson is breaking up with his wife who is
34 years younger, Woody Allen’s wife is
35 years younger than him, Dick Van Dyke’s wife is
46 years younger and the biggest age gap I could find was Hugh Heffner whose
wife is
60 years his junior. The fact that large age gap relationships make
most of us uncomfortable, does not make them a crime, or evidence of sexual
abuse.
Some women find famous, rich or powerful men sexually attractive regardless of
their age and almost all men find at least some
18 year old women sexually attractive! The letter evidence proves a sexual relationship
that we may disapprove of, however, it is not evidence of criminal activity. If the alleged abuse started when she was 13 it
was in 1978. They had, by all accounts, a consensual relationship from when she
was 18 in 1983 until it was ended in 1997 when she was 32. They had an adult sexual relationship for at
least 14 years, whatever trauma she alleges she had suffered, she had clearly
forgiven him. Or could it be that there never was any abuse? At the age of 30 or
31 she was clearly an adult, so why stay in a sexual relationship with a former
abuser? The relationship ended acrimoniously, so she
certainly had a motive to turn vindictive. In addition,
Harris told police in 2012 that Bindi’s friend had threatened to expose his
affair in the tabloid press in the Nineties and had demanded £25,000 for an
animal sanctuary. Harris refused. “The court has previously heard that
she was an alcoholic by the time she was in her late 20s” There is, considerable scientific evidence that
alcohol abuse is linked to confabulation (also called honest lying)
where people make things up and honestly believe them” The standard of guilt in a criminal trial is
supposed to be, beyond a reasonable doubt. Without any corroborating
evidence of under-age on non-consensual sexual activity can it really
be beyond doubt that this could simply be a vindictive attack by an ex-partner,
or a confabulated tale from a confessed alcoholic, or an attempt to gain
financial advantage ? Some will doubtless say that even if individually
these are not compelling, when taken as a whole they paint a picture of an
abuser. This is a very dangerous conclusion, lots of nonsense is still nonsense: Many people have
claimed to be abducted by aliens. Individually their accounts are not
compelling, but (even though there are lots of them) taking them together they
still don’t paint a picture of extra-terrestrial attack! The media, in its orgy of “Savilization”, has
been encouraging people to come forward. The press is also awash with stories of
compensation for “victims”, if any social climate was perfect for false accusers
to try their luck, this would be it. I really don’t know (and nor do you!) whether
Rolf Harris is an evil paedophile monster or an 84 year old national treasure
who has been ruined by greedy/malicious opportunists. I do know that if all it takes to send a man to
prison and ruin his life is an uncorroborated accusation from 45 years ago, then
no man is safe under British justice.
http://www.libertarianview.co.uk/current-affairs/rolf-harris-beyond-reasonable-doubt
Jimmy Savile;
Ted Heath
Stuart Hall
Cyril Smith
Greville Janner [ accused on oath but
walked ]
Mark Trotter
Paedophile Jews,
hundreds of them, especially rabbis -
see Failed Messiah Paedophiles for
more and better details.
Rolf Harris (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian entertainer whose
career has encompassed work as a musician, singer-songwriter, composer,
comedian, actor, painter and television personality.[4]
"Two Little Boys" is a song written by American composer
Theodore F. Morse and
lyricist
Edward Madden. It was written in 1902 and became a popular music hall
song of the time, made popular by
Harry Lauder. It describes the story of two boys who grow up to fight in
a war. In 1969, it became a surprise No. 1 top-selling single for
entertainer
Rolf
Harris in the United Kingdom.
QUOTE
‘You’ve got to remember, this was the era of Bob Dylan, the Stones and the
Beatles,’ lamented one victim of repeat embarrassment. ‘Artists and rock
musicians were radically transforming an entire generation, with cool, hip
songs about the sexual revolution, civil rights and drugs. Yet turn on
Top of the Pops in the mid-’60s and the only contribution you ever heard
from Australia was Rolf Harris prancing around with a third appendage
strapped to his waist singing “I’m Jake the Peg diddle-um diddle-um with his
extra leg diddle-um diddle-um” or warbling on about “Two Little Boys with
Two Little Toys.” It was awkward, to say the least.’
UNQUOTE
The tone is frivolous. The facts are there.
Captain Pugwash is a fictional
pirate in
a series of British children's
comic strips and books created by
John Ryan. The character's adventures were adapted into a
TV series, using cardboard cut-outs filmed in
live-action (the first series was performed and broadcast live), also
called Captain Pugwash, first shown on the
BBC in 1957, a
later colour series, first shown in 1974–75, and a
traditional animation series, The Adventures of Captain Pugwash,
first aired in 1998.[1]
There is a persistent
urban legend, repeated by the now defunct UK newspaper the
Sunday Correspondent, that ascribes
sexually suggestive names – such as Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger
(meaning "have
sex with") the Cabin Boy – to Captain Pugwash's characters, and
indicating that the captain's name was a slang Australian term for oral sex.[3]
The origin of this myth is likely due to student
rag mags from the 1970s[4]and
the character Master Mate, whose name when spoken by Pugwash occasionally
sounded something like "Master Bate". However none of the other characters
ever featured in the show. Interestingly, although there was a real
character called Willy, which is an inoffensive British slang term for
penis, this character is never cited as an example of the double entendres.
Rolf Harris – Beyond Reasonable Doubt?
UPDATE: Now, in January 2017 he is facing further charges. The
Main Stream Media aren't bothering so much with innocent
until proven guilty line.
Rolf Harris – Beyond Reasonable Doubt?
He was not on trial for being
in Cambridge and being there is not the same as committing the offence. If he
knew he had been in Cambridge he would presumably know it was for a television
show. In the internet age there had to be a chance it would come to light and
undermine his credibility as a witness. Why take the chance? If he didn’t
believe totally that he had never been to Cambridge why not simply say, “I don’t
remember being in Cambridge at that time, I travelled around a lot”