Rolf Harris spat at in prison scuffle

Entertainer targeted during incident at HMP Bullingdon, after he launched appeal against his sex assault convictions

Artist and television personality Rolf Harris. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris was spat at in a scuffle at the prison where he is serving a jail sentence for sex abuse.

News of the incident at HMP Bullingdon, in Oxfordshire, came as it emerged that the 84-year-old had applied for permission to appeal his conviction for indecent assaults.

A source said a fight broke out in the prison when Harris was nearby.

“Someone did aim spit at him, but he was not spat on, and not physically hurt,” the source added.

A Prison Service spokesman said, “We do not comment on individuals.”

Harris, who was a mainstay of family entertainment in Britain and Australia for several decades, was convicted of 12 indecent assaults on girls aged between seven or eight and 19 in July.

One of the assaults was on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two were on girls in their early teens and he committed a catalogue of abuse on his daughter’s friend over 16 years.

He was jailed in July for five years and nine months for the abuse, which spanned between 1968 and 1986.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Office confirmed that lawyers had lodged papers at the Court of Appeal, and a judge will now consider whether his appeal bid should progress to a full hearing.

Earlier this week Attorney General Jeremy Wright decided that the sentence would not be referred to the Court of Appeal for being too lenient, despite 150 complaints that the jail term was not tough enough.

Additional reporting by Press Association