Rolf Harris still an Officer of the Order of Australia despite conviction and jail sentence

THE murals, paintings and plaques of convicted sex predator Rolf Harris have quickly disappeared from public spaces but the disgraced entertainer’s biggest accolade remains untouched.

FILE - APRIL 19, 2013: The Sun tabloid newspaper in Britain is reporting that Australian entertainer, Rolf Harris was arrested in March, in relation to sex abuse claims. The Sun is claiming that Harris was arrested as a result of Operation Yewtree, the investigation into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal. LONDON - NOVEMBER 7: Australian broadcaster and artist Rolf Harris holds the Officer of the Order of Australia, presented by the High Commissioner John Dauth, at Australia House on November 7, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

THE murals, paintings and plaques of convicted sex predator Rolf Harris have quickly disappeared from public spaces but the disgraced entertainer’s biggest accolade remains untouched.

A month after being jailed for sexually assaulting four teenage school girls over an almost 20-year period, the 84-year-old paedophile can still boast of being an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Harris was swiftly stripped of his 2008 ARIA Hall of Fame award and a BAFTA fellowship in the UK, but the secretive council that advises our Governors General on Australia’s top honours refused to comment on the future of Harris’s top gong.

“We will not comment on individual situations regarding the possible or actual termination or cancellation of an award,” said Acting Deputy Official Secretary to the Governor-General Sharon Prendergast.

Ms Prendergast said the council investigates matters brought to its attention and considers each case individually and after due process recommends appropriate action to the Governor-General as the head of the Order.

On Saturday, it was announced Harris had launched an appeal against his conviction for 12 attacks on young girls.

The disgraced entertainer was sentenced to five years and nine months.

A judge will now look at any basis for an appeal and rule whether he can proceed.

If decided he can, Harris will be able to argue at a later court date his case against the Crown Prosecution Service in front of three judges.

It was also revealed Harris was involved in a prison brawl when a fellow inmate spat at him.

The attack came after he was moved from maximum security Wandsworth Prison to category C rated HMP Bullingdon, designed for those who cannot be trusted in open conditions but who are unlikely to try to escape.

It is alleged an inmate hurled abuse at Harris then spat in his direction. He missed Harris but hit another prisoner who “went beserk” during the prison chapel Catholic service.

Harris reportedly cowered in the pews during the fight and was left shaken but unhurt.

Child abusers, rapists and paeophiles are seated away from other criminals at chapel service, but there is no barrier or screen.

Erasing Harris from the Order could take months or even years if previous instances of criminal convictions against its members and officers are a guide.

Elsewhere the reaction against Harris has been swift.

Victims of sexual abuse painted over a Caulfield mural by the convicted paedophile, while children’s charity Variety has said it will remove an image of Harris in the painting Entertainers of the Century which features 100 Australian entertainers and hangs in the food court at Queen Victoria Market.

The City of Perth ripped up a 1959 commemorative plaque to the fallen star on St Georges Terrace within hours of voting to remove it and his boyhood school in Bassendean WA pulled down his paintings.

A plaque laid by Harris in 1988 to open a bicentennial Heritage Trail in his home town was stolen hours after a special meeting of the Bassendean council voted to remove all traces of its links with Harris by stripping him of his Freemanship of the Town, taking down his paintings from the council chambers and removing the plaque.

Thieves also managed to prise a plaque dedicated to the fallen star in a Celebrity Tree Park in Kununurra in WA off its concrete plinth just hours before the local council was due to vote on whether to remove it.

Even private owners of Harris’s artwork have reacted with disgust, with the owner of one work estimated to be worth $80,000 vowing to burn it.

Harris first became a member of the The Order of the British Empire in 1968, being upgraded to an officer of the order nine years later. In 1989 he was made a member of the Order of Australia and in 2012 was appointed an officer of that Order for “distinguished service to the performing and visual arts, to charitable organisations, and to international relations through the promotion of Australian culture”.