Harkins by now was a diminished figure. I’d seen him years before in the High Court in Glasgow and he had been a muscular, imposing man.
Now he was thinner, his court suit too big. He was a man obsessed by appearance and I can only think his baggy shirts and mismatched shoes and trousers caused him stress.
Harkins was found guilty of 19 offences including rape, assault, recording an intimate video without consent, threatening and abusive behaviour and four other sexual offences.
He also admitted defrauding nine women out of more than £214,000.
In July last year Harkins was sentenced to 12 years in prison. As he was handcuffed to be led to the cells, he turned to look at me in the gallery.
“This is because of you,” he said. No. This was because of the women who were brave enough to stand up to him.
If there is anything to be taken from story of Christopher Harkins, it is the determination of these women and the way they held their nerve for years, standing together as a force Harkins that, in the end, could not reckon with.
