Rolf Harris: Convicted paedophile who used his fame to groom young girls dies aged 93
Disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris, who became one of the UK’s biggest TV stars but was later jailed for using his fame to groom and assault young women, has died after a long illness, aged 93.
Harris was jailed for sexual assaults on young girls, one a childhood friend of his daughter, another an autograph hunter.
He denied all the accusations but was convicted after a high-profile trial of a dozen historical indecent assaults against four girls and four charges of producing indecent child images. It wrecked his career and ruined his reputation.
Sentencing him in 2014 to five years and nine months in prison, the judge said Harris had taken advantage of his celebrity status and shown no remorse.
Harris arrived in Britain aged 22 from his native Australia in 1953 and became a national treasure who had several of his own TV series, and appeared as a guest on many others from the 1960s onwards.
He had a string of hits with songs such as Jake the Peg, Two Little Boys, and Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport. He also appeared several times at Glastonbury Festival.
He was awarded many honours, including an MBE, OBE and CBE, a BAFTA fellowship and honorary university doctorates, all of which were revoked after his conviction.
Queen Elizabeth II sat for him for an 80th birthday portrait which was hung in Buckingham Palace.
Harris performs with his wobbleboard at Glastonbury Festival in 2010
‘He had a darker side to him’
Leading publicist Mark Borkowski said: “When the accusations sank in you began to feel cheated, that all those emotions you’ve had for an icon were false.
“He had a darker side to him that overshadowed all the fun and games he had broadcast for decades.
“People will remember him as an entertainer, unique, [who] lived in the heart of the nation and was good at reinventing himself – but he will be remembered for his crimes.”
Harris, married with a daughter, was among a dozen celebrities arrested during Operation Yewtree, one of a series of police investigations into historical sex abuse allegations against high-profile figures – including BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, a prolific sex offender exposed only after his death.
At the start of his trial, the prosecutor described Harris as “a Jekyll and Hyde” character with a hidden dark side to his personality.
Harris pictured in custody. Pic: Met Police
A childhood friend of his daughter Bindi was his main victim, telling the jury he had groomed and indecently assaulted her repeatedly between the ages of 13 and 19, once when his daughter was asleep in the same room.
She called the police about Harris after the wide publicity surrounding Savile’s exposure, though there was no connection between the two men’s crimes.
Harris said he’d had a relationship with the woman but claimed it began after she turned 18. He later wrote to her father insisting nothing illegal had happened.
‘Parents believed their children were safe’
Mike Hames, former head of the Metropolitan Police’s paedophile squad, said: “Children loved him and parents were willing to leave their children with him because they believed they were safe.
“That’s the perfect way to operate from the point of view of a child abuser because they are able to get the child by themselves and because the child is in awe and most unlikely to say anything.”
Rolf Harris recording an album in 1997
Australian Tonya Lee, who waived her right to anonymity, said Harris abused her three times on one day when she was 15 and on a theatre group trip to the UK.
She later said she contemplated taking her own life because of the abuse.
Other victims told the court that he touched or groped them, sometimes at public events or charity performances.
Jurors were also told of indecent assaults on women in Australia, New Zealand, and Malta – although Harris wasn’t charged with overseas crimes.
Peter Watt, of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), said the charity had helped police build the case against Harris after 28 calls to its helpline, including 13 women who said he had abused them.
Mr Watt said after Harris’s conviction: “His reckless and brazen sexual offending, sometimes in public places, bizarrely within sight of people he knew, speaks volumes about just how untouchable he thought he was.”
Wife stood by him in final years
In 2015, Harris was stripped of his CBE and of honours in his native Australia.
In 2017, while he was still in jail, he was put on trial a second time, over four allegations of indecent assault on three teenage girls. He denied the charges and was found not guilty after the jury failed to agree verdicts.
The Queen meets Harris and Kylie Minogue backstage at the Diamond Jubilee Concert in 2012
In a statement read out by his lawyer, Harris said: “I feel no sense of victory, only relief. I’m 87 years old, my wife is in ill health and we simply want to spend our remaining time together in peace.”
Harris was freed from jail halfway through his second trial after serving three years. One of his convictions was overturned on appeal.
He spent the rest of his days living reclusively with his sculptor wife Alwen, who had stood by him, at the couple’s Thames riverside home in Berkshire.
Entertainment
‘Love you bro’: Zayn Malik’s tribute to Liam Payne at first show since former bandmate’s death
Entertainment
Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
Read more:
Boy George on the price of fame
The fan club president who joined the band
In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway