A former criminal defence solicitor was today sentenced to 13 years in prison after he abused his professional relationship to indecently or sexually assault clients while they were held in police or court cells.
Alan Harris, 72, of Plymouth, Devon, did not react as he was sentenced by the recorder of Winchester Her Honour Judge Morris following a full day of victim impact statements and mitigation yesterday.
The judge, sitting in Winchester Crown Court, said Harris had ‘for a period of 40 years, enjoyed a successful career as a local solicitor in the Plymouth area, specialising in criminal defence work’ adding: ‘There is no greater fall from grace than this’.
She said: ‘You were a popular and successful defence solicitor. Over the years you represented hundreds, if not thousands, of clients who found themselves on the wrong side of the law and it is fair to say that your success was borne of hard work and the results you achieved for those you represented.
‘Regrettably and despite the outward appearance of being a thoroughly respectable professional man whose standing in his local community secured him many plaudits and clients, there was a darker side to your character. In broad terms this consisted of you taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves whilst acting as the legal representative for vulnerable clients to sexually assault them for your own sexual gratification.’
Harris, who had his own firm before retiring from practice in 2016, was convicted in December last year 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. Yesterday, the court heard Harris did ‘not accept the verdict but does understand it’.
The judge said: ‘The offences which you have been convicted span a period of 27 years from 1988 to 2015. The offences perpetrated by you had one thing in common, namely that there was a professional relationship between you and each of the victims in this case. You were the criminal defence solicitor instructed to represent each victim, and they were your lay clients at the time you sexually assaulted them.’
She said all of Harris’ victims had placed their trust in him as their lawyer. ‘You were the one person on whom they should have been able to rely to advise and steer them through the situation they found themselves in vis a vis the criminal justice system.’
All of the assaults against Harris’ male victims took place in the police cells at Charles Cross police station, Plymouth or in the cells at Plymouth magistrates’ court.
The judge added: ‘With the exception [of one victim], every victim spoke about how they felt unable to complain about your conduct towards them because of the imbalance of power between you and them. Given your familiarity to a number of victims who were repeat offenders and by extension, repeat clients, you must have appreciated that they were exactly the sort of people who would not complain about your conduct towards them, and so they were easy targets who you were able to exploit for your own sexual gratification.’
Sentencing Harris to a total of 13 years imprisonment made up of consecutive and concurrent sentences, the judge told Harris he was ‘supposed to be there to help [the victims] navigate the criminal justice system, not sexually abuse them in the midst of it’.
A sexual harm prevention order was not imposed and no order for costs was made.
Before rising, the judge commended the work of Anne Whyte KC, prosecuting, and Christine Agnew KC, defending. She said she wanted to acknowledge ‘the privilege that it has been for me to preside over a case where there has been such remarkable professionalism from counsel throughout the whole course of this trial’. The barristers’ work had been an ‘exemplary exhibition’ of professionalism, the judge said.
