‘Dirty, grubby, disgusting’: How Rolf Harris’ victims felt

A BBC radio host who claims she was assaulted by the paedophile has broken her silence after his death. See the horrifying stories of other Harris victims. Warning: Graphic

A BBC Radio host who claims she was assaulted by Rolf Harris as a teenager has reacted to his death.

Karen Gardner claims she was assaulted three times in the space of 35 minutes when she was just 16 while on the show Star Games in 1977.

Ms Gardner tweeted: “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.”

Ms Gardner shared her experience in the documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight which aired in the UK last week.

“In the space of I guess about 35 minutes, he assaulted me three times in plain sight. And it was horrible because you’re surrounded by people, and he had a method of operating,” she said.

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

Karen Gardner claims she was assaulted by Rolf Harris three times in the space of 35 minutes when she was just 16 years old.

Harris’ victims had never met but all had the same horrifying story.

They were attacked by a predator – a celebrity they looked up to and admired – who thought he could do whatever he pleased.

In 2014, Harris was convicted of 12 sex offences on four females. One charge relating to an allegation that Harris indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl in 1969 when she attended an event at a leisure centre in Portsmouth, UK was later quashed.

One of his victims met the disgraced Australian entertainer as a young child when she was friends with his daughter Bindi.

She was 13 when the assaults began and the abuse scarred her for decades, later revealing how the attacks reduced her to a “quivering wreck” and robbed her of the chance to ever have a proper relationship.

The woman told his UK trial she was holidaying with the Harris family in Hawaii in 1978 when she had just finished showering.

She was wearing a towel wrapped around her body when Harris gave her “one of his big hugs and tickles” and put his fingers onto her crotch.

She said Harris sexually assaulted her in her bedroom when she was 15, before laughing and joking with her parents downstairs, who he was friends with.

Rolf Harris was convicted of multiple sex offences on four women. Picture: Getty Images

Harris conceded he had a relationship with the woman, but claimed it was consensual and started after she turned 18.

The woman said she was left feeling “dirty, grubby and disgusting” and became an alcoholic.

“I have never had a meaningful relationship while sober. I have also never been able to hold down a job. Rolf Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck. He made me feel like a sexual object,” her statement read to court said.

Tonya Lee revealed how Rolf Harris attacked her. Picture: Britta Campion

A teenage waitress alleged Harris rubbed her back and then squeezed her bottom during filming for a TV show in Cambridge in 1978.

At sentencing Harris was told: “You were clowning around and took advantage of the fact that she was somewhat awe-struck. Again others were present. You groped her bottom, squeezing her left buttock a number of times.”

Australian woman Tonya Lee waived her right to anonymity before the trial. She told of how the attack came during her theatre group’s tour of the UK.

Ms Lee said Harris called her over to his table, complimented her voice and asked her to sit on his lap. He then moved his hand over her legs and put it up her skirt.

She went to the pub’s toilets but Harris followed her and assaulted her again, she said.

“I was absolutely petrified. I wanted to scream but I didn’t. I knew what he’d done was wrong but I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell anybody that he touched me. I thought people might say I’d done something.”

She later developed bulimia, depression and began drinking heavily.

There were six other alleged indecent assaults by Harris including on two Australian make-up artists, a 16-year-old fan and her mother from Newcastle, an 18-year-old traveller in Malta who feared she was about to be raped and a 12-year-old girl from Darwin.

These all occurred outside the jurisdiction of the court but were used by the prosecution to show a “pattern” by Harris.

Suzi Dent was an anonymous character witness for the prosecution in Rolf Harris's trial on multiple sexual assault counts. Picture: ABC NEWS

One of the make-up artists was Suzi Dent who was 24 when she crossed paths with Harris.

She told the ABC she was excited to met him because he was “very famous” and she’d watched his shows as a child.

Once he was in the make up chair, he began to touch her.

He’d run both hands up my legs, right up to my thighs,” she said.

“I was wearing a leather belt. He would grab the belt and pull me towards him so he could crotch grind, which never quite happened but he certainly tried.

“Each time I went up to him he would touch me.”

Originally published as ‘Dirty, grubby, disgusting’: How Rolf Harris’ victims felt