Court of Appeal: Good character lost at an early stage
The Court of Appeal has rejected a retired criminal defence solicitor’s appeal against a 13-year jail sentence for sexually abusing clients in police and court cells.
Lord Justice Holgate said the “high reputation” of Alan Eugine Harris, who abused clients over a period of 27 years, “put him in a position whereby he could exploit vulnerable victims in the way that he did”.
The judge commented: “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.”
Holgate LJ said that before retiring in 2016, Mr Harris had been a criminal defence solicitor in the Plymouth area. “He acquired a very considerable reputation for his work as a solicitor in this field. He was known to many.”
Between 1988 and 2015, he committed “multiple offences of indecent assault and sexual assault against seven victims”, having been instructed to represent them.
“All of the victims were vulnerable. Some were teenagers; some were dependent on drugs or alcohol; others had chaotic lifestyles and complex family backgrounds.”
All of the victims were male, apart from the last one. As a result of her complaint, the police launched an investigation in 2015.
“With the exception of C7, all of the sexual assaults were committed in police cells at Charing Cross Police Station, or cells at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court,” the judge recounted.
“In many cases the victims were under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol and were desperate for the applicant to secure their release, including their release on bail.
“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.”
Following a trial at Winchester Crown Court in December 2025, Her Honour Judge Angela Morris convicted Harris of 10 offences of indecent assault or sexual assault and sentenced him on a victim-by-victim basis.
On appeal, he argued that the sentences passed on four of the counts were manifestly excessive.
Particular reliance was placed “upon the nature of the touching which is said to fall at the lower end of the scale for this type of offending” and emphasis put on Mr Harris’s age, now approaching 73, his health and previous good character.
Counsel for Mr Harris also submitted that the judge “gave excessive weight to the complainant’s vulnerability and the abuse of trust involved in the offending”.
Holgate LJ said the sentence of four years’ imprisonment for one of the counts was justified “by the repeated offending against a client whose previous rape, serious mental health difficulties and fear of returning to prison were known to the applicant”.
On the second and third sentences of five and two years respectively, the judge was “entitled to regard the offending as being even more grave” because Mr Harris had “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”.
Nor did the Court of Appeal consider that the sentence of three years for the other contested count excessive.
“The submission that the applicant did not know that the victim was not wearing underwear does not alter the intrinsic nature of the intentional sexual touching which the jury found to be proven, or render the sentence excessive.”
The trial judge had “fully factored” into her sentence Harris’s “significant health issues,” including a heart bypass operation in January 2025.
Refusing his application for leave to appeal, Holgate LJ said the Court of Appeal “would go so far as to say that this sentence was not excessive at all”.
Her Honour Judge Leigh, sitting as a judge of the Court of Appeal, contributed to the judgment.