London: Rolf Harris' jury has been told to consider whether a young woman 'reluctantly consented' to an indecent assault by the Australian entertainer, in the same way a wife might reluctantly consent to marital sex on a Saturday night.
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Harris, 86, has pleaded not guilty to groping four teenage girls and three adult women, including an 18 year-old who said he rubbed her bare back and made a sexually suggestive comment during a band rehearsal in 2002.
Towards the end of their fourth day of deliberations, the jury came back with a question for Judge Alistair McCreath, asking whether "reluctant acquiescence" was the same as consent.
A woman had given evidence that in 2002, when she was an 18-year-old backing singer in a band, Rolf Harris had unexpectedly arrived at a rehearsal.
He commented to the lead singer "I didn't know you had a beautiful girl in the room" and walked up to her, standing very close, she said.
He put his hand on her bare back, rubbing it in circular patterns from her crop top to just above her jeans, telling her she was "really gorgeous".
He then said to her "Do you know what I find really attractive in a woman? If you were to join up the two dimples on a woman's back to your bum crack it would make the shape of a diamond; I think it's really sexy."
On the witness stand the woman said she had "laughed it off" in a nervous way because she had felt uncomfortable. Asked by defence lawyer Stephen Vullo, QC, if she had "reluctantly accepted without any sort of protest" she had replied "yes".
In re-examination by prosecutor Jonathan Rees, QC, the woman said she had not been comfortable but it was an odd situation, he was a celebrity and she felt she didn't have much power in the situation.
Judge McCreath told the jury the ultimate question they had to decide was whether there had been consent.
Consent was "more than just putting up with it", he said
However, he added, "sometimes a person may acquiesce, albeit reluctantly, and thus consent".
To illustrate the point he said "without being overly crude this sort of thing happens in marriages or relationships".
"(A husband might say) 'We always have sex on a Saturday night… come on we always do it' (and the wife replies) 'All right let's get on with it'.
"That's consent – not enthusiastic, but consent it is."
Judge McCreath called this the "Saturday night example, as it were".
The jury then retired to continue its deliberations.
Earlier on Tuesday Judge McCreath told the jury they may return majority verdicts.
Harris was given a small ray of hope on Tuesday morning, when the jury found him not guilty on one – alternative – charge of assaulting the 12 year-old, outside a radio station in Portsmouth.
However it is still open for them to judge him guilty of assaulting the girl after her 13th birthday.
During her evidence, the woman said she had not been sure of the date of the assault, though there was some evidence, including the order of autographs in her autograph book, suggesting she had not yet turned 13.
In his closing speech to the jury last week, Mr Rees said Harris was "adept at groping girls and women right under the noses of others".
Given his previous 12 convictions for assault the "sad truth in this case is that the evidence establishes Mr Harris does have the propensity to commit this sort of offence," he said.
However, defence barrister Mr Vullo said the women who had accused the 86-year-old Australian entertainer of attacking them this time all had significant problems with their stories - which he said they had invented seeking money or fame.
"There are questions that are simply not answered by lapse of memory or being slightly inconsistent," he said.
"When you hear a body of evidence that makes no sense when you put it together … there's a reason for that and the usual reason is that it's not true."
