Criminal defence lawyer who raped and sexually assaulted female and male purchasers over 30 years branded a ‘monster’ by victims
A criminal defence solicitor who sexually abused clients for almost 30 years has been branded an ‘evil monster’ by his victims.
Alan Harris, 72, targeted the young and vulnerable when they were in police holding cells – knowing they would not be believed.
Victims, some of whom were as young as 14 at the time, were left in tears in court on Tuesday as they told how he had had caused them lifelong ’emotional and psychological trauma’.
They said Harris, who they said they should have been able to trust – deserved ‘nothing less than hell’ for his depraved acts, which were carried out at a time when they were most vulnerable.
One told him he was ‘scared and desperate and needed your help and you preyed on me’.
Harris was convicted of five counts of indecent assault and five sexual assaults against seven victims dating from 1988 to 2015.
The majority of the offences, against six men and one woman, happened during legal consultations at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court and the Devon city’s Charles Cross police station, with a separate incident in a car near the police station.
Harris was found to have touched the victims necks, shoulders, thighs and crotch and some victims saw him ‘ejaculate’.
At his sentencing hearing at Winchester Crown Court, Hants, on Tuesday, clients who were molested by now-retired Harris looked him in the eye as they read out their victim impact statements.
Retired solicitor Alan Harris, 72, at Winchester Crown Court,where victims told him he had caused them ’emotional and psychological trauma’
Harris, who had an ‘extremely good standing in the community’, retired as a solicitor in 2016.
He denied that any of the touching had been sexual but was found guilty by a jury in December following a six-week trial.
He showed little emotion in the dock as the victims gave their statements.
One told the court he wanted Harris to ‘understand the lasting impact he has had on my life’.
‘Wrong choices brought me into contact with the police. I was young and vulnerable and I saw you as a professional individual,’ he said.
‘I told you my huge fear of returning to prison where I had been raped and beaten.
‘You should have been professional but you did these depraved, sickening sexual acts. I will never understand or accept your sickening behaviour.
He added: ‘What is worse is that most of the actions took place in the police station – where I should have been safe. It was a perverse gratification.’
His female victim said: ‘Nothing less than hell is what you deserve. The emotional and psychological trauma will be with me forever.’
Another victim addressed Harris directly. He said: ‘This has impacted me for 25 years.
‘I have spent time in and out of prison and missed time with my son, my daughter, my mum and my dad. I have suffered tremendously.
‘He abused me when I was at my most vulnerable. I was scared and desperate and needed your help and you preyed on me.
‘You are a monster.
‘There is no peace for me and there never will be. No sentence will ever be enough for the victims. We are living a life sentence.’
Harris will be sentenced on Wednesday.
Anne Whyte KC, prosecuting, told the trial that Harris’s job as a defence solicitor ‘brought him into contact daily with people, hundreds of them over the years, who were charged with or suspected of criminal offences’.
Ms Whyte added: ‘It was his job to represent them, it was his job to ensure whatever they had done, they were treated fairly in the criminal justice system.
‘It was his job to get the best possible outcome for them, instead he used his professional access to his clients as the opportunity to sexually abuse them, often in plain sight, safe in the knowledge that due to their particular circumstances, they were often impotent to do anything about it or report him at the time.
