Former criminal defence solicitor fails in bid to appeal cell assault sentence

A former criminal defence solicitor who was jailed for 13 years for assaulting clients while they were held in police or court cells has had a renewed application to appeal his sentence refused.

Alan Eugine Harris, 72, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in February after he was convicted 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. All of the assaults against Harris’ male victims took place in the police cells at Charing Cross police station, Plymouth, or in the cells at Plymouth magistrates’ court.

Harris’ first application for leave to appeal was refused and his renewed application was made before Lord Justice Holgate and Her Honour Judge Leigh, sitting as a judge of the Court of Appeal criminal division.

In lead judgment, Lord Justice Holgate noted that Harris’ offending extended over some 27 years and was committed ‘in the course of or through access gained by’ his professional relationship as a criminal defence solicitor. He added: ‘The offending with which we are concerned…involved repeated and grave abuse of professional trust against vulnerable clients.

‘All of the victims were vulnerable. With the exception of C7 [the final victim in time] all of the sexual assaults were committed in police cells at Charing Cross Police Station, or cells at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.

‘Apart from C7, each victim described feeling unable to complain about the applicant’s offending because of the effective power which he wielded over them. Many victims were repeat offenders and therefore relatively easy to exploit and most unlikely to report the offending.’

The judges found the sentences imposed by the sentencing judge justified and not manifestly excessive.

Considering counts 20 and 25, the sentencing judge was ‘entitled to regard the offending as being even more grave’, the judgment said. ‘The applicant repeatedly assaulted a profoundly vulnerable relatively young man who had confided in the applicant about sustained sexual abuse, and used the very relationship in which protection and trust were required to exploit him further.’

It added: ‘It is said that good character was a consideration also to be taken into account. However, the problem for the applicant is that this offending was so extensive, committed over so many years and involved so many incidents against so many complainants that good character was lost at an early stage.

‘Indeed, it seems to us that this was a situation in which the applicant’s professional high reputation put him in a position whereby he could exploit vulnerable victims in the way that he did. Good character is not a factor which in this case, and in these circumstances, could attract any real mitigation.’

Finding Harris’ proposed appeal had no real prospect of success, the judges said the sentencing judge’s approach ‘does not…disclose any error of principle. Nor did it result in an overall term which was manifestly excessive’.

Holgate added: ‘Indeed, on the contrary, we consider that the overall term of 13 years’ imprisonment was just and proportionate to the overall criminality. Despite the very well presented submissions both in writing and orally…we would go so far as to say that this sentence was not excessive at all.’