If she really was 13 then there's no excuse for that. But we should remember that they had a relationship that lasted until she was 29, and I for one find it difficult to understand how she could be so badly traumatised by his actions when she was (allegedly) 13 but chose to stay in a sexual relationship with him for another 16 years... At which point she allegedly demanded that he pay £25,000 to avoid the story being given to the press.
I think that we need to make a distinction too between Harris and some of the worst abusers - based on what I've heard, they simply weren't in the same league as each other and Harris, without doubt, was a good entertainer and a talented artist, even though he seems to have been flawed. If even half of what we have heard about Saville is true, he was a predatory paedaphile who had no real talent and who used his position to deliberately create opportunities to abuse children. I don't think there is any evidence that Harris did anything like that.
What concerns me most about this isn't what Rolf Harris did or didn't do, or about his punishment - my concerns are about historic abuse that seems to have been covered up. 2 Inquiries have now been announced by HMG but there is a history of inquiries turning into cover ups, and personally I'm not convinced that guilty people in high office (assuming, which we don't know, that they actually are guilty) will ever be brought to book.
I listened to a radio interview yesterday, when a retired detective inspector said that he had been given the job of investigating the conduct of Cyril Smith. He said that he was later ordered by a more senior officer to hand over all of his evidence, information and notes and never mention the name of Cyril Smith again, or else. It's inevitable, if these things really happened, that some of the people responsible for the cover-ups will still be in positions of influence, and maybe still in positions of power. What chance then of any inquiry getting to the truth, even assuming the will to do so?
