After more than 26 hours of deliberation beginning last Wednesday, the jury was only able to reach majority verdicts on two charges of indecent assault and one of sexual assault.

It remained divided on the remaining indecent assault charges.

After receiving a note from the jury, judge Alistair McCreath decided it was fruitless to ask them to continue deliberations, and discharged them.

Prosecutors have a week to decide whether they will request a retrial.

Harris, 86, let out one sigh of relief during the verdicts, but otherwise remained impassive. He will now return to prison, where he is serving a sentence for previous assault convictions against three other women, to await the next step.

The jury returned not guilty verdicts on:

A woman who claimed he groped her in 1977, when she was in her early teens, after she went up for an autograph outside a radio station.

A blind and disabled woman who claimed he groped her in the same year, when she was 27, during his visit to a London hospital.

A woman who claimed that in 2004 he assaulted her during a "wrap party" for a BBC television show, when she was 42.

However they could not reach verdicts on four other charges of groping a 14-year-old at a music festival in 1971, a 16-year-old at a celebrity game show in Cambridge in 1978, a 13-year-old at a BBC TV show in 1983, and an 18-year-old at a band rehearsal in 2002.

In his closing speech to the jury last week prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said Harris was "adept at groping girls and women right under the noses of others".

Given his previous 12 convictions for assault the "sad truth in this case is that the evidence establishes Mr Harris does have the propensity to commit this sort of offence," he said.

However defence barrister Stephen Vullo QC said the women who accused the 86-year-old Australian entertainer of attacking them this time all had significant problems with their stories – which he said they had invented seeking money or fame.

"There are questions that are simply not answered by lapse of memory or being slightly inconsistent," he said.

"When you hear a body of evidence that makes no sense when you put it together ... there's a reason for that and the usual reason is that it's not true."

Outside the court after the verdict, Harris' solicitor Daniel Berke said "Mr Harris is grateful for the care and attention this jury has given to his case and the not guilty verdicts returned."

"Given the uncertainty as to what will happen no further comment can be made."

Lawyers are expected to return to Southwark Crown Court next Wednesday where the decision on a retrial will be revealed.