Unlike Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris was caught before his death and was made to pay the price for his many years of criminal behaviour – but only in the UK
Rolf Harris’ victims felt he was so powerful they would not be believed (Image: Supplied)
Survivors of Rolf Harris have spoken out for the first time about his abusive behaviour, with one branding the late entertainer and artist as a “disgusting old man”.
The Australian star, who died in 2023, was jailed in the UK for five years and nine months for indecent assault in 2014. One of those who helped to convict him was the best friend of his daughter Bindi, known as Victim A, who was just 13 years old when his attacks started.
Now a new documentary features other women revealing what they went through, with one assaulted by Harris when she was a teenager on a Mediterranean holiday, another attacked while making a TV commercial and a third while on tour with her theatre group in London.
Sunny was 15 when she was filming a TV ad alongside Harris, who was the face of a brand called British Paints. She said the assault happened soon after he arrived on set and stood very close to her, “right in my face”. “That’s when he assaulted me, then walked off. The reason I am doing this is to say to him ‘you are a disgusting old man and you can’t get away with it any more’. Just f*** right off,” she says.
Pamela was on holiday with her boyfriend and another couple in Malta in 1970. “I was 18, everything was fun,” she remembers, until they ran into Harris in a bar and he took her into another room to show her “more of his art”. “He just pushed me against the wall and he put his hands on my breast. He kissed me which was not very nice, very horrible,” she says. “And then he put his hands in my pants, up my dress. And then he said ‘I’m sorry’, and then he cuddled me.”
She believes she knows why his mood changed suddenly. “I really thought he was going to rape me – I had my period at the time. I think that’s why he stopped.”
Although the paedophile and serial sex offender had made the UK his home, he travelled regularly back to native Australia. Another victim, called Nina, said that she was 14 in 1984 when Harris came in to a motel where she was staying with her family because of her dad’s job.
“Rolf Harris started to touch me in quite an imposing way. He was rubbing himself up against me and putting his hands over my shoulders and touching my chest. I just didn’t know how to make him stop,” she recalls. “He was reciting a poem while he was groping me, rhythmically, groping my breasts in time to his little nursery rhyme. Obviously for him this was funny and this was how he was treating a child.”
Nina reported him to police at the time but the programme finds that New South Wales authorities have no record of her complaint. She now feels angry that they ignored what she told them. ‘They were looking at their watches, yawning. By disregarding it, this behaviour is escalated. He’s repeated it over and over again with children, and all those children have been damaged by him. The police could have addressed that in 1984 and they just didn’t choose to. The whole thing leaves you feeling isolated. It’s hard to describe the impact that has on your development and confidence.”
One of the most disturbing elements of the two-part documentary is how many people knew what he was up to but did nothing to stop him as he hung out with pals including Jimmy Savile. Investigative reporter Meirion Jones describes how his wife was warned about Harris while working at the BBC. He says an executive told her not to get into a lift with him on her own or walk up the stairs in front of him. “Management knew Rolf Harris was in the habit of groping, and they were trying to transfer that problem to the people around him, saying to women, ‘don’t put yourself in a position where he might attack you’.”
The first episode also features Cathy, who had come to London on a six week tour with her theatre group in 1986, when she was 15. She was told that Rolf Harris was going to come and watch their final performance to give feedback. “He said to me ‘come and sit on my lap’ and he was telling me how talented he thought I was and that I should keep going,” she remembers, growing tearful. “
He started to put his hand on my legs and going under my skirt. This is all happening while we’re all singing and talking and laughing. It was so bizarre, no one knew anything was going on. I just went really quiet and was in shock, I just thought ‘I wish my Mum was here’. I went to the bathroom and I started to cry, I wasn’t sure if it had really happened. I composed myself and walked out and when I did he was right by the door – with a big smile on his face. That’s when he assaulted me. He put his fingers inside me and assaulted me and then he just walked away.”
She said the assault has had a lasting impact on her and she never returned to the theatre group. “For that one moment of whatever he got from it – it destroys people’s lives. Not just six months or a year, your whole life. Nothing is the same.”
Ben Markham, Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police who worked on Operation Yewtree, said Victim A was motivated to come forward after seeing Harris appear on screen at one particular event in 2012. “The turning point came with the Queen’s jubilee,” he explains. “It was like a dam bursting, she just felt ‘this is enough’.
Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.
