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Harris jury still deliberating

The jury in the trial of Rolf Harris will return for a fourth day of deliberations as they attempt to reach unanimous verdicts in the entertainer’s child sex abuse trial.

The six men and six women who will decide the 84-year-old’s fate will return to Southwark Crown Court in London on Tuesday morning.

So far they have been out for 13 hours in total.

At the end of their third day of deliberations Justice Nigel Sweeney told the jurors “enough for today”.

He said that because the trial was at such a “sensitive stage” he was obliged to remind them they shouldn’t discuss the case overnight.

Their discussions, the judge said, should be put on hold until they were all back in the jury room on Tuesday morning.

“Then, and only then, should your deliberations restart,” Justice Sweeney said.

Harris on Monday waited for any news in the court’s cafeteria supported by his daughter, Bindi, and a small group of other family and friends. The Australian’s wife, Alwen, wasn’t at court.

The jury members on Friday afternoon asked Justice Sweeney three questions including what steps they could take if they were unable to reach unanimous verdicts.

“At the moment the only verdict on each on each count I can accept from you is one upon which you are all agreed,” the judge told them.

However, Justice Sweeney noted that position could change, in which case he’d give them further directions.

The man who gave the world the wobble board is charged with 12 counts of indecent assault against four girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986. The main complainant is a childhood friend of Harris’s daughter.

Another six women gave supporting evidence during the trial that Harris abused them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta between 1969 and 1991.

Harris denies touching any of the women inappropriately. “They are all making it up,” he told the court in late May.

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