Why Rolf Harris’ death was kept a secret for two weeks

Rolf Harris’s daughter Bindi, his carers, and former personal assistant attended the infamous paedophile’s cremation service two weeks before his death was announced publicly.

Rolf Harris’s family kept his death secret for almost two weeks until after his funeral to avert a backlash from alleged victims.

The disgraced entertainer died of neck cancer at his home in Bray, Berkshire during the early hours of May 10, aged 93.

But news of his death was not made public until Tuesday, two weeks later after he was cremated, in nearby Crowthorne at a private service attended by just his daughter Bindi, carers and former personal assistant Lisa Ratcliff.

News of former entertainer Rolf Harris’s death was kept secret by his family for fear of victims demonstrating at his funeral, his private investigator William Merritt said. Picture: Carl Court

In a statement issued after the release of his death certificate, his family said Harris had “recently died peacefully surrounded by family and friends and has now been laid to rest”.

“The family deliberately keep the news of Rolf Harris’s death quiet because they wanted to ensure his funeral was not disrupted and that they could pay their last respects privately and without disruption,” said William Merritt, a private investigator Harris had hired to research the backgrounds of women who made sex claims against the TV star.

“Despite what people thought about him, his family respected and loved Rolf.”

Yet even in the final weeks of his life, sex abuse victims were continuing to emerge and accuse the former entertainer of molesting them.

Among them was Suzi Dent, an Australian former make-up artist, who says she was assaulted when she was 23 in 1986. She says after appearing in last week’s ITVX documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight, she has been contacted by numerous other victims.

Australian entertainer Rolf Harris died a disgrace, aged 93, after he was jailed in 2014 for a series of sex assaults on youngsters. Picture: Getty Images

Ms Dent said she believed there were many other women around the world who had still not come forward but following his death might now feel liberated to tell their story.

BBC radio journalist Karen Gardner waived her anonymity to accuse him of assaulting her three times in the space of 35 minutes when she was his 16-year-old bag carrier for the show Star Games in 1977.

Private investigator William Merritt, left, with Rolf Harris lst year.

She tweeted after his death: “Very few of us escape the impact of evil people. What we have to do is expose them, share and stand together to dilute the pain.

“For me it was Rolf Harris but he inflicted much worse on other girls.”

She told the documentary: “I won’t talk about the actual details, but he was paying me attention, he was saying how great I had been, and he hugged me, and that’s when it happened. And it was humiliating and degrading and awful and your blood turns to concrete.”

Rolf Harris was stripped of his CBE in 2015 by Queen Elizabeth II after he was found guilty of sex attacks on girls as young as seven. Picture: Getty Images

Lawyers also claimed Harris’s death could trigger a flood of civil claims against his multimillion-pound estate.

His lawyer Daniel Burke said: “Any claim will be robustly defended and Mr Harris will seek full costs against any person who brings a false claim”.

Harris, who was one of Britain’s most respected entertainers with a career spanning 50 years, was jailed in 2014 for a series of sex assaults on youngsters.

Veteran entertainer Rolf Harris with his wife Alwen (C), daughter Bindi (R) and niece Jenny (left), on the first day of his London trial for sex offences. Picture: John Stillwell

The crimes, which dated back to the 1960s and carried on until the 1980s, took place while he was at the height of his fame.

He was initially arrested as part of the Metropolitan Police Operation Yewtree investigation into historic child sex abuse in March 2013, and charged in August of that year.

His trial heard how he had begun grooming one of his principal victims, a close childhood friend of his daughter Bindi, when she was 13.

He molested her for the first time during a family holiday to Hawaii and Australia in 1978.

Other victims included a teenage waitress he fondled during filming of the ITV show Star Games in Cambridge in 1978 and a child actress he attacked in 1986.