Update | Jailed British PR guru Max Clifford faces new sexual assault allegations
Celebrity publicist Max Clifford sentenced to eight years for a string of sex attacks on teenage girls faces fresh allegations, police say
British police say they are investigating new sexual abuse allegations against disgraced publicist Max Clifford.
Police said on Saturday they had received new information about possible offences committed by Clifford.
Clifford, the king of tabloid kiss-and-tell scandals, was sentenced to eight years in jail on Friday for a string of sex assaults against teenagers.
The 71-year-old, who masterminded countless sleazy celebrity stories and kept even more stars out of the headlines, thought he was "untouchable", Judge Anthony Leonard said.
"You targeted vulnerable women who you thought would comply because they were desperate to succeed," Leonard said.
The publicist was found guilty earlier in the week of eight indecent assaults on four young women aged from 15 to 19 between 1977 and 1984.
You targeted vulnerable women who ... were desperate to succeed
Clifford, who denied the charges, remained defiant as he entered London's Southwark Crown Court for sentencing, stonewalling questions about whether he wanted to apologise to his victims.
"I stand by everything I've said in the past," he said. Clifford admitted it was "not the best day of my life" and added: "I just have to make the best of it. That's what I've got to do."
He is the first high-profile figure to be convicted under Operation Yewtree, the police investigation into allegations of sex offences following the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Clifford's victims came forward following revelations in 2012 that the late BBC presenter Savile - a household name in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s - had been a serial sex offender across the decades.
Judge Leonard told Clifford he must serve at least half his sentence in jail.
"These offences may have taken place a long time ago when inappropriate and trivial sexual misbehaviour was more likely to be tolerated or overlooked," Leonard said.
But he added: "Your offending is not trivial but of a very serious nature".
Under laws brought in since the offences took place, the worst of Clifford's sexual acts would have been charged as rape, the judge said. "The reason why they were not brought to light sooner is because of your own dominant character and your position in the world of entertainment, which meant that your victims thought you were untouchable - something I judge that you, too, believed and traded upon," Leonard said.
The victims included a dancer assaulted in a toilet and a model who said Clifford groped her when she went to his office for career advice in 1983.
She told the court he bragged that he could get her a part in a James Bond movie.
Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, said she hoped the case would encourage other victims of sexual offences to come forward, regardless of who carried out the abuse and when.
"The prosecution in this case has proved Max Clifford's guilt beyond reasonable doubt," she said.
"The prosecution was built with evidence demonstrating a pattern of behaviour where unconnected victims told of strikingly similar experiences over a number of years."
Clifford was cleared of two other counts of indecent assault. He will not face a retrial on an 11th count on which the jury could not reach a verdict.
David Mellor, a 1990s cabinet minister, was forced to resign after Clifford exposed his affair with actress Antonia de Sancha.
Clifford's made-up claim that Mellor made love wearing a Chelsea football strip made a memorable front page for , the tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch.
"I regard Max Clifford as a sleazeball who lived very well and high on the hog on other people's misery," Mellor told the BBC.
"He was the arbiter of sleaze who turned out to be more sleazy than anyone he turned over."
