The law firm had argued that there was no public interest in reporting that the Australian singer and comedian had been arrested on indecent assault charges. The Times has, in an editorial, described a letter written by the firm as ‘an ill-disguised threat deployed chiefly to protect a celebrity’s privacy’. The Daily Mail ran a headline saying: ‘How Rolf’s bullying lawyers cited Leveson inquiry to hide his arrest for four months and nearly jeopardised his conviction’. The Leveson inquiry into the freedom of the press has been looking at ways of curtailing the excesses of some parts of the media. 

Critical evidence

Harbottle & Lewis helped keep Mr Harris’s name out of the press until April 2013. After his name was published several more women came forward to say that they were also victims. Prosecutor Sasha Wass QC said that their evidence was critical in helping to prove his ‘persistent pattern of sexual offending’. Source: Daily Mail