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Harris jury shown 1978 film

The jury in Rolf Harris’s child sex trial has been shown footage of his main accuser taken in Australia just days after she alleges the entertainer indecently assaulted her as a 13-year-old.

The 1978 film viewed on Friday was seized from the Harris family home west of London in November 2012, five days before the artist and singer was first questioned by detectives from Operation Yewtree.

The main complainant in the case is a childhood friend of Harris’s daughter Bindi.

She says she was first assaulted when she was 13 and joined the Harris family on a holiday to Canada, Hawaii and Australia.

In the film, the alleged victim is playing with others on inflated tubes on a river. It also shows Bindi’s friend swimming in a pool in a bikini and standing outside a house in Australia.

The alleged victim, when giving evidence almost a fortnight ago, told Southwark Crown Court that, when she was 28, Harris told her the flesh-coloured bikini she’d worn as a 13-year-old on the holiday “turned him on”.

Harris admits having a 10-year “affair” with his daughter’s friend but says sexual relations only began after she turned 16.

The prosecution on Friday called its final witness after more than two weeks of evidence.

Case officer Detective Sergeant Gary Pankhurst detailed how the investigation into the Australian began in October 2012, some three weeks after Yewtree was established to examine historic sex abuse claims against late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.

Police were notified that a counsellor had been working since 1998 with a woman who claimed she was sexually abused by Harris as a child, the court heard on Friday.

The next day, the woman herself – Bindi’s friend – got in touch for the first time anonymously.

The defence is expected to open its case on Tuesday, with Harris moving from the glass-walled dock to the witness stand.

It’s believed the 84-year-old will give evidence for two or three days.

Harris is charged with indecently assaulting four girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986. He denies all 12 counts.

The trial continues.

AAP

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