Law Soc Gazette
A former criminal law solicitor who was found to have sexually or indecently assaulted clients while they were being held in police or court cells was today described as a ‘monster’ by one of his victims.
Retired Plymouth practitioner Alan Harris, 72, was convicted last December of five counts of sexual assault and five counts of indecent assault relating to seven former clients – six men and one woman – between 1988 and 2015. Harris has not held a practising certificate since retirement in 2016.
Anne Whyte KC, prosecuting, told a sentencing hearing at Winchester Crown Court that the ‘overriding common feature of abuse of trust…applied to every single offence and complainant in this case, given the solicitor-client relationship existing at the time of offending’.
Victim impact statements were read out in court with some of the complainants, who are granted lifetime anonymity, choosing to read theirs aloud.
One said Harris abused him ‘when I was at my most vulnerable, when I was supposed to trust you.’ The victim told Harris: ‘You knew I could not stand up for myself. I could not say anything. Nobody would believe me. Who would believe me over you? We were there for you to do whatever you wanted to do to us in plain sight.’
