Rolf Harris: How Operation Yewtree exposed celebrity sex offenders

Shocking footage has resurfaced of Rolf Harris joking with evil BBC sex predator Jimmy Savile amid claims the pair targeted vulnerable women at a hospital.

When Operation Yewtree began investigating British television icon Jimmy Savile for serial abuse of hundreds of youngsters, they suspected there would be others.

The commonality of the more than 300 witness statements taken in the early days of that probe revealed female victims had reported incidents but they were dismissed as celebrities and comedians just having a bit of fun and getting carried away.

A grope and a kiss and a cuddle in a change room was just showbiz and a carry on from what they would do in public or on stage for the cameras.

They said that about Savile, then they said that about radio presenter Stuart Hall, glam rock singer Gary Glitter, DJ Ray Teret and celebrity publicist Max Clifford and, finally, Rolf Harris.

Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris appeared on screen together in a 1976 episode of Jim’ll Fix It alongside a little girl who wanted to paint with Rolf Harris. Supplied

Gary Glitter performing in 1973. Picture: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

There was no particular connection between the men, although they crossed paths or featured on each other’s programs as Saville and Harris once did, but the allegations or crimes levelled against them were their own doing.

But they were connected by being powerful celebrities over a certain time, many of whom bragged they could do what they liked and many did.

Was there an understanding? Perhaps.

A new documentary shows paedophiles Harris and Savile joking on screen together in a 1976 episode of Savile’s BBC show Jim’ll Fix It about a young girl being “safe” in their hands.

In one scene, Harris remarks “she is anxious to run away” when the girl moved from Savile to him.

The camera cuts to Savile and Harris on stage with the nervous-looking girl, before Savile blurts: “You see this young lady, sir?

“She wishes that she could help you with one of your paintings, do you think I may leave her in your charge?”

Harris snaps: “Safely leave her in my capable hands here.”

In a sickening scene, Harris then starts painting, saying: “You stay here and enjoy it, girl.”

BBC presenter Jimmy Savile was one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders. Picture: Michael Putland/Getty Images

In 2014, an ex-inmate at Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital where Savile abused dozens of patients in his volunteer role as a porter, recalled Savile and Harris leering at vulnerable women in the mid-1970s as they prepared for bed.

A former patient told The Mirror in 2014 that she witnessed Savile giving Harris a guided tour of the hospital’s wards outside of visiting hours.

In seeking to defend her dad despite the severity of his indecent assault convictions, Harris’ daughter Bindi Nicholls said it was an era and “flirty” behaviour was common and accepted.

“Dad is from the age of Benny Hill, Carry On films. He is Australian – which was pretty male chauvinist in those days – that is the era he is from, so sometimes he says non-PC jokes,” she reportedly wrote in a memoir.

“He loves a flirt, which he does very openly, much to my embarrassment, but I have met many a man from my dad’s generation like that.”

Documentary maker and broadcaster Louis Theroux had a different view when he compared Yewtree allegations to Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and a trend of powerful men being exposed or accused of sexual misconduct in a time and culture of their industry.